Tilaknagar Industries (TI), makers of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL), has acquired Punjab Expo Breweries, a bottling unit in Derabassi (Punjab) for Rs 5.5 crore.

“The acquisition of the bottling unit gives us the advantage of having a foothold in North India, which is in line with our strategy to expand into the northern states,” Mr Lalit Sethi, CFO, Tilaknagar Industries, told Business Line .

“The distribution set-up there is already in place and this will give us control of manufacturing as well,” he added.

“The capacity of this 3-year-old bottling plant is 50,000 cases a month, and there is scope to increase it to 60,000 with the existing machinery,” Mr Sethi said.

Whisky market

Since North India is primarily a whisky market, TI will be bottling its whisky brands and white spirits (gin and vodka) or rum at the Derabassi plant, he said.

“We will also be looking at launching some new brands in Delhi, Rajasthan and Punjab,” he said, but declined to provide details.

The company has a strong presence in South India, which accounts for 90 per cent of its sales volume, and has a market share of about 20 per cent in the IMFL segment in the south. It has a pan-India share of 5 per cent.

The maker of ‘Mansion House' and ‘Senate Royal' whisky has a total of 31 bottling units.

It bottles about 18 million cases of at least 40 brands of IMFL a year, and exports its products to Africa, the Caribbean Islands, Europe and Asia.

For the year ended March 2011, the Tilaknagar Industries posted revenues of Rs 468 crore.

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