The Hindu Business Line : JK Corp is now JK Lakshmi Cement — Shifts part of corpus for new investment co

JK Corp on Friday announced a change in name to JK Lakshmi Cement Ltd and the shifting of a part of the JK Corp corpus to a new investment company, yet to be named.

JK Lakshmi Cement will solely focus on cement manufacturing and marketing, while part of its corpus — Rs 170-180 crore — will be shifted to the new investment company that will fund the financial needs of the JK Group companies, said Mr Shailendra Chouksey, Director, JK Lakshmi Cement.

The investment company will be listed on the national stock exchanges. It will have the same share holding pattern as JK Lakshmi Cements, which has 40 per cent shareholdings by promoters, 30 per cent by foreign institutional investors and the rest by the public.

"Various formalities like the formation of the board of the new investment company are being worked out," said Mr Chouksey.

Capacity expansion: JK Lakshmi Cements has a manufacturing plant at Sirohi (Rajasthan) with an installed capacity of 2.4 million tonnes. The company plans to take it to three million mt by the year-end and 3.3 mt by 2007-08. The expansion will cost Rs 40 crore which will be entirely funded through internal accruals.

At the cement plant in Sirohi, the company plans to set up a captive power generation unit with a capacity of 36 MW. The power project will be set up under a special purpose vehicle. The thermal power generation plant will entail an investment of Rs 140 crore, 70 per cent of which will be funded by debt.

The company markets cement primarily in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Last year, it clocked a turnover of Rs 600 crore and claims to have a 6-7 per cent market share of cement in the country.

At the Bombay Stock Exchange, the company's stock closed at Rs 72.45 on Friday, with the 52-week high of Rs 86.80 and a low of Rs 25.25.

The turnover of the group, JK Organisation, stood at Rs 4,100 crore last fiscal.

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