Japanese glassmaker Asahi Glass Company, having acquired the holdings of Tata and ACC in their joint venture Float Glass India, is now consolidating its Indian operations. The firm is now working towa…
Japanese glassmaker Asahi Glass Company, having acquired the holdings of Tata and ACC in their joint venture Float Glass India, is now consolidating its Indian operations. The firm is now working towards merging Float Glass with its flagship Indian venture in safety glass. The move, Asahi India managing director Sanjay Labroo said, will create India“s largest glass maker with combined sales of over INR 5,000 million and gross block assets of over INR 6,000 million. “We are seriously considering merging Float Glass with Asahi India. We have already initiated the techno-feasibility study as the merger will provide us some tax benefits,” Labroo told newspersons here on Friday. Float Glass has an accumulated loss of INR 2,800 million, while Asahi India, with a net worth of INR 450 million, is expected to gross INR 130 million profit after tax this fiscal. As a first step, the Japanese firm has already written off almost the entire preference share capital and accumulated dividend (INR 1,430 million) in Float Glass. In addition, it has also taken over the venture“s entire foreign currency debt and restructured it as a dollar denominated loan for 10 years with zero per cent interest in the fist 8 years. Asahi Glass Company had recently bought out the entire stake held by Tata and ACC in Float Glass, hiking its holding in the venture to 75%. This was followed by an open offer, through which the firm hiked its holding to slightly under 80%. The entire holding was then transferred to Asahi India, a joint venture between Asahi Glass (24%), Labroo family (24%) and Maruti Udyog Ltd (12%) with the balance 40% being held by the public.