Shiva Cement plans to raise up to Rs 80 crore

MUMBAI: Rourkela-based Shiva Cement is raising nearly Rs 80 crore through bank loans to part finance its Rs 165-crore expansion plan which aims at nearly quadrupling capacity to 2.3 million tonne. Chairman and managing director RP Gupta said IDBI Bank would provide the loan in a few months. The company would mobilise another Rs 85 crore to finance the expansion programme, he added.

Of this, the company would raise Rs 50 crore through an equity instrument, while country’s largest cement maker ACC, which holds 14% stake in Shiva, would chip in around Rs 35 crore, Mr Gupta said.

He said ACC’s stake in Shiva would not breach the 15% mark. Under the law, an investor is required to launch a 20% open offer once it acquires more than 15% stake in a company.

Shiva sells cement under the same brand name in Orissa and Bihar. It sells ACC cement in West Bengal and some pockets of North Eastern India. Its main market Orissa has seen a 16% growth in cement consumption, against the national growth rate of 8.4% last year.

With a combined capacity of 230 million tonne, India is the world’s second-largest cement market, after China, and it’s growing at 7-8% a year.