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P.T. Jyothi Datta

Mumbai , Nov. 16

ON the Maharashtra Government's radar for disinvestment, Haffkine Bio-Pharmaceutical Corporation Ltd (HBCL) is scouting for a strategic partner and Pune-based Venkateshwara Hatcheries (VH) Group is in the reckoning.

The estimated Rs 1,800-crore group is looking to revisit its plan of getting involved with HBCL either directly or indirectly, Ms Anuradha Desai, VH Group's Chairperson and Managing Director, told Business Line.

Owner of the popular Venky's brand of poultry products, the VH Group had, in the recent past, signed a memorandum of understanding with HBCL to form a joint venture company that would subsequently look to run HBCL's vaccines business.

But with the Maharashtra Government talking once again about disinvesting its equity in the public sector undertaking, the VH Group is keen on either picking up equity in HBCL directly or re-activating its existing MoU with the PSU, she said.

The earlier agreement between HBCL and the VH Group is pending with the State Government awaiting its clearance, said an official familiar with the development.

HBCL makes vaccines for polio and rabies, besides serums and essential pharma products. The State Government will possibly look to retain majority control in HBCL, the official said.

The research-oriented Haffkine Institute, however, will remain with the Government, he added.

Strategic fit: Vaccines will be the strategic fit between the VH Group and HBCL. The PSU had posted a marginal profit on a turnover of about Rs 52 crore, he said. Polio vaccines accounted for a lion's share of the PSU's revenues and only recently it had invested more than Rs 10 crore in a polio-vaccines manufacturing plant in the city.

Though poultry products are the flagship business of the integrated VH Group, it also makes vaccines for poultry.

The group also sells pathogenic-free eggs to other major vaccine companies that use raw material to make human, poultry and animal vaccines, Ms Desai said.

The group has an existing poultry vaccines plant at Pune and will shortly operationalise a new vaccine plant near Pune (at Hinjewadi) for the foot-and-mouth disease that affects cattle, she said.

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