Catapulting into the global league

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

: Like many of its Indian counterparts, Hindalco Industries too has been hungry for a global bite. The $6 billion acquisition of Novelis Inc in February this year, has catapulted the Aditya Birla group flagship into the global big league. The transaction will make Hindalco the world’s largest aluminum rolling company, one of the biggest producers of primary aluminum in Asia, and India’s leading copper producer.

Debu Bhattacharya, managing director, Hindalco and director of Aditya Birla Management Corporation, said, “Hindalco has a 60% share in the currently small but potentially high-growth Indian market for rolled products. The acquisition will give us immediate scale and a global footprint.”

The company has been looking at aggressively ramping up its portfolio of value-added products. In its efforts to get into high-strength alloys, the company had entered into a joint venture with Almex USA Inc in November 2006, for the manufacture of high strength aluminum alloys for the aerospace, sporting goods and surface transport industries.

The company’s plans on the home turf are no less ambitious. In May 2006, it signed an MoU to set up a Rs 7,700 crore aluminum smelter in Madhya Pradesh.

Hindalco Industries, structured into two strategic businesses—aluminum and copper—is an industry leader in both. A non-ferrous metals powerhouse with a turnover of Rs 11,396 crore (2005-06), Hindalco’s integrated operations and operating efficiency have positioned the company as Asia’s largest integrated primary producer of aluminum and among the most cost efficient producers globally.

Hindalco’s Birla Copper unit at Dahej in Gujarat is the world’s largest single location custom copper smelter with 500,000 tonne per annum capacity.

Unlike aluminum, India has limited proven copper reserves. Hence, Birla Copper sources copper concentrate from various countries, including Australia, Indonesia and South America. The division also owns two copper mines in Australia— Birla Nifty Pty. Ltd. in western Australia and Birla Mount Gordon Pty. Ltd. in Queensland through its 51 per cent subsidiary—Aditya Birla Minerals Ltd.

The copper business segment comprises primarily production (through copper smelting, converting and refining) and sale of copper—in the form of cathodes and continuous cast rods—and byproducts, precious metals (gold, silver, selenium and platinum group mix) and DAP and NPK complexes, as well as operating jetty services and other logistical activities related to sales and distribution of products. Revenues are derived primarily from the sale of copper, DAP & NPK complexes and precious metals.