RHI hopes to soon get a nod to merge India arms

Kolkata: RHI Magnesita, the Vienna-based €3.1-billion global leader in high-grade refractory products for steel, cement, nonferrous metals and glass industries, expects to receive an approval from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) within a week to complete the merger of its three arms in India, to emerge as the largest refractory company in the country.

After the merger, its three arms — Orient Refractories, RHI Clasil and RHI India — will become a single entity, RHI Magnesita India. While RHI India is a wholly-owned sales subsidiary of RHI Magnesita, the latter holds 70% stake in Orient Refractories, a maker of special refractories for the steel sector, and 53.7% in RHI Clasil, which produces alumina-based refractories for steel and cement industries..

“We are in the final stages of consolidating our three arms in India into a single entity. We hope to get the interim approval within a week. Thereafter, it is likely to take another two months to complete the process by November this year,” the company’s CEO Parmod Sagar told ET. The combined entity will have annual revenues of about ?1,700 crore with 1200 employees and four manufacturing sites.


Sagar said RHI Magnesita remains upbeat on the prospects of the Indian economy despite the current downturn. “The current situation is a temporary phase, before steel and cement sector will show a steep rise,” he said. RHI hopes to build its presence in the country through a mix of organic and inorganic growth. It recently made two acquisitions which include Intermetal, a metallurgical firm in Mumbai, and an asset purchase agreement with Manishri Refractories and Ceramics in Odisha.