FACT bets big on gypsum-based building panels

Jaiveer Srivastava, Chairman and Managing Director of FACT looks visibly satisfied with the improvement in the company’s performance as he completed the first one year of his tenure on April 1.

When Business Line met him in his office, he was busy with preparing sales strategies to be adopted for the current financial year. FACT has recently signed a MoU with the Union Fertiliser Ministry targeting a sales turnover of ₹3,850 crore for 2014-15 fiscal year, against ₹2,400 crore achieved in the previous fiscal.

The major physical targets include production and marketing of 7.5 lakh tonnes of Factamfos and two lakh tonnes of ammonium sulphate.

It has also plans to commence caprolactam production with the improvement of economy, he told during the interaction.

With the improvement in production, Srivastava expressed the hope that mounting losses would come down during 2013-14 periods.

Listing out the achievements in the last one year, he said there has been a positive outlook in all spheres of activity as the production of complex fertiliser touching 8.38 lakh tonnes in 2013-14, an increase of 1.15 lakh tonnes in the previous year.

The marketing division also exceeded the target, by registering a sales figure of 8.97 lakh tonnes in 2013-14 against 7.86 lakh tonnes in 2012-13.

He attributed the commendable performance to last year’s good monsoon and the emergence of Factomfos as a preferred and premium brand in South India, enabling the company to sell off the whole available stock.

Asked whether he was happy with the performance, Srivastava said “I’ll be the happiest man only when FACT starts making profit. My mission here will be accomplished only after that.”

Today, the company has registered excellent performance with complex fertiliser production touching 65,000-70,000 tonnes a day.

However, there was a drop since January due to high LNG prices.

He was of the view that the gas price would come down shortly which would enable the company to go back to LNG as its feedstock.

FACT is also betting big on its gypsum-based building panels developed by FRBL, the joint venture between the FACT and RCF Building Products Ltd.

A full time CEO has been appointed for the overall supervision and marketing of the product, which has already carved a niche market in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Apart from plans to popularising it among builders as part of promoting low cost construction, the company is also in discussion with the Railways for special rates for its transportation, considering the huge logistical cost involved in moving the product to north Indian markets.

Further, the company FACT intends to augment its core competency sectors of engineering and consultancy organisation FEDO and FACT Engineering Works (FEW) as separate profit centres.

He said the company is quite optimistic of getting clearance for the ₹991.90-crore packages as submitted to the Union Government as recommended by the Board of Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises.

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