Hindalco Industries Ltd, the Aditya Birla aluminium and copper major, has decided to merge with itself the aluminum foil unit at Kollur in Andhra Pradesh currently vested with its subsidiary Indal as the tenure of the court order restricting the transfer has ended.
When Indian Aluminium Co Ltd (Indal) became a subsidiary of Hindalco in 2004, all the assets of Indal except the Kollur plant were transferred to Hindalco.
Indal chairman AK Agarwala told shareholders at their annual general meeting here today that the merger would “strengthen the business and enhance prospects for future growth.”
“As part of the global non-ferrous powerhouse, your company’s foil business stands to gain in scale and sale of operations. Several measures to optimise and enhance the foil product-mix will prove beneficial to the Kollur plant,” Agarwala said.
“According to a court order, there were restrictions on transfer of the Kollur property for a period of five years that ended on March 31, 2007. Henceforth, there wouldn’t be any restriction on its transfer,” he said.
Later, when he was asked by reporters if the integration of Kollur with Hindalco would be followed by the merger of Indal with Hindalco, Agarwala remained non-committal.
However, Indal, since its acquisition by the Aditya Birla group in 2004, is left with the Kollur plant only, all assets and businesses having being demerged to Hindalco.
The Kollur foil plant was originally a part of Annapurna Foils Ltd which was acquired by Indal through a BIFR scheme in 2001 and later merged in April 2002.
The 3,000 tpa light gauge foil plant makes blister and strip foil for the pharmaceutical industry, confectionary and personal hygiene wraps and consumer product packing.
