66 SURVEY OF CEMENT INDUSTRY & DIRECTORY 2017 | 5th EDITIONLabour & Industrial Chronicle

INDIA’S TOP 10 CEMENT COMPANIES

“India is moving on to a higher growth trajectory and to that extent; the cement sector is poised for a pick-up in growth - around seven per cent in FY 16-17. The government’s push on the infrastructure front will give an added impetus to the cement industry. Your company has robust plans to

proactively ride this next phase of growth in India”. This was observed by Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of Ultratech Cement Limited, in his letter to company’s shareholders.

Under the leadership of Kumar Mangalam Birla, the Mumbai based UltraTech Cement Limited has

become the largest manufacturer of grey cement, white cement and ready mix concrete (RMC) in India and the fourth in the world. The company’s cement operations span across India, UAE, Bahrain, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. It is also India’s largest exporter of cement reaching out to

UltraTech Cement has a grey cement capacity of 93 MTPA inclusive of its overseas capacity of 3.6 MTPA. With this, UltraTech is the largest cement company in India and the fourth largest in the world (excluding China). The other three global companies are LafargeHolcim, HeidelbergCement Group and Cemex.

No 1 in India, 4th in the WorldULTRATECH CEMENT

67 SURVEY OF CEMENT INDUSTRY & DIRECTORY 2017 | 5th EDITIONLabour & Industrial Chronicle

INDIA’S TOP 10 CEMENT COMPANIES

meet the demand in countries around the Indian Ocean and the Middle East.

UltraTech Cement, subsidiary of Grasim Industries Limited, is a part of Aditya Birla Group, which is an US$ 41 billion multinational corporation and in the league of Fortune 500 companies. The Group has interests in aluminium, carbon black, cement, fashion retail network, financial services, telecom, and viscose staple fibres. It operates in 36 countries, earns over 50 per cent of revenues from its overseas operations, and employs about 120,000 employees from 42 nationalities. The Group was ranked No. 1 corporate in the Nielsen’s Corporate Image Monitor FY15.

UltraTech’s Growth: 1985-2017 Ultratech Cement’s growth story began in 1985, when its main promoting company - Grasim Industries Limited diversified into cement business by setting up a 0.5 MTPA capacity flagship cement plant - Vikram Cement Works in Madhya Pradesh. A decade later, in 1995, the company set up two more units - Grasim Cement Works (now Rawan Cement Works) in Chhattisgarh and Aditya Cement Works in Rajasthan.

The year 1998 witnessed consolidation of Grasim’s cement business as it got transferred the entire cement business of Indian Rayon & Industries Limited, which had a capacity of 3.2 MTPA. With this addition, Grasim’s total cement capacity was increased to 8.5 MTPA. In fact, the Indian Rayon, also an Aditya Birla Group company, had diversified into cement in 1984 by setting up its first unit - Rajashree Cement Works with a capacity of 0.54 MTPA in Karnataka.

With a view to have a foothold in the South, Grasim acquired Dharani Cement Limited from PGP Group of Tamil Nadu in April 1998. Later Dharani Cement was merged with Grasim and its cement plant was rechristened as Grasim South, now known as Reddipalyam Cement

Works. In fact, Dharani Cement was originally started as a 200 TPD mini cement plant with VSK technology in December 1987 at Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu.

In 1999, Grasim achieved another big strategic success in West by striking a deal with the Kolkata based Bangur Group for their 42 per cent stake in Shree Digvijay Cement Company Limited (SDCCL), which had a cement plant of 1.08 MTPA in Gujarat. However, in 2008, the company divested its stake in SDCCL to Cimpor Group.

The Grasim’s biggest achievement came in 2004 when it acquired L&T’s cement subsidiary - UltraTech CemCo Limited with a capacity of 17 MTPA. In fact, L&T had diversified into cement in October 1983 by setting

up its first cement plant - Awarpur Cement Works in Maharashtra with a capacity of 1.1 MTPA. In April 1999, the L&T acquired Narmada Cement Company Limited (NCCL) from Chowgule Group with a capacity of 1.5 MTPA, and converted NCCL into its subsidiary.

In fact, the process of acquisition of L&T’s cement business had commenced on November 18, 2001, when Grasim had acquired 10 per cent stake in L&T for Rs 766.50 crore from Reliance Industries Limited. Later in June 2002, Grasim raised its stake in L&T to 14.5 per cent. In 2003, L&T de-merged its cement business into a separate company - UltraTech CemCo Limited in a composite scheme of arrangement with Grasim. The process of demerger was completed

YearCementCapacity MTPA

CPPs Capacity

MW

WHRSCapacity

MWMarket Cap

1983-85 01.04 000.00 00.00 -----

1998 08.50 038.00 00.00 -----

2004 31.12 120.00 00.00 US$ 1bn

2008 42.00 ----- 04.00 US$ 2bn

2008-10 48.90 503.00 04.00 -----

2010-11 52.00 ----- 04.00 US$ 7bn

2013-14 62.00 613.50 10.50 -----

2014-15 63.00 717.23 33.00 -----

2015-16 69.30 717.23 59.04 -----

2016-17 70.20 717.23 59.04 US$ 15bn

June 2017 93.00 1042.23 59.04 -----

1983-85 : 1st unit of Indian Rayon-Rajashree 0.54 MTPA in 1984; and Grasim’s Vikram 0.5 MTPA in 19851998 : Merger of Grasim-Indian Rayon cement business2004 : Acquisition of L&T Cement’s 17 MTPA and listing 2008-10 : Green-field and Brown-field projects2010-11 : Organic addition:15 MTPA; Acq Star 3 MTPA2013-14 : Acquired 4.8 MTPA from Jaypee Group 2014-15 : WHRs 33 MW; Solar 2.6 MW; Wind 1.13 MW2015-16 : WHRs added 26 MW, increased to 59 MW 2016-17 : Acquisition of Jaypee’s cement 21.2 MTPA

Growth of UltraTech from 1983 to 2017Cement and CPP Capacities, Market Capitalisation

Source: UltraTech’s Milestones; Corp Dossier, ARs and Industrial Chronicle Data Bank