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Tata Global Beverages Ltd will look for a “major acquisition” in the next two-to-five years, the company’s Vice Chairman, R.K. Krishna Kumar, said on Monday.
“We have identified a couple of them and shared it with the team (at Tata Global), I am sure they will do more exciting things,” he told newspersons on the sidelines of the company’s 50{+t}{+h} annual general meeting here.
Krishna Kumar, who spearheaded Tata Global’s acquisition of UK-based Tetley in 2000, is set to hang up his boots this week.
New beverages space
“It is my dream that in the next two-to-five years we will make a major acquisition and be truly world-class not just in tea, not just in coffee but in the new beverages space; we will be an unrivalled company,” he said. The company is aiming for a fourfold increase in turnover to $5 billion in the next three years.
Tea accounts for nearly 70 per cent of the company’s turnover, while 20 per cent comes from coffee and the balance from water and other beverages. According to Harish Bhat, Managing Director, Tata Global Beverages will invest heavily in brand promotion in the next two-to-three years. The company plans to launch its packet green tea across the country and will also focus on strengthening the Tata Tea and Tetley brands.
The company’s fortified water brand, Tata Water Plus, currently available in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, would soon be launched nationally, Bhat said.
According to him, the coffee and water segments are likely to grow significantly in the next few years. While the Himalayan ‘natural mineral water’ brand will be taken to the international market, plans are afoot to raise the domestic instant coffee manufacturing capacity.
Talking on the company’s loss-making Tetley tea business in Pakistan and Bangladesh, he said a fresh strategy was under way in both the countries.
“Both these countries are large tea-consuming markets... We have taken a re-look at our strategy and will re-invest in these countries. We hope to start earning profits in the medium term,” Bhat said.
Earlier, Cyrus Mistry, Chairman of the Tata Group, told the AGM that Tata Starbucks Ltd might break even in a “couple of years”.
Not quitting Bengal
The Tata Group had no intention to leave West Bengal, said Mistry. “The Tatas have never left West Bengal. We will never leave West Bengal as a group,” he told shareholders at the AGM.
However, Mistry, who chaired the AGM for the first time, declined to comment on the Supreme Court's recent observations on Singur. “The matter is sub-judice,” he said.
The Supreme Court recently asked Tata Motors to make its stand clear on the leasehold rights it has over the Singur land as the company had already moved its proposed car plant out of the State. To this, the company had said it will explore all possible options including considering alternative use of the land at Singur.
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