Berger Paints plans to invest Rs 120-130 crore in FY12 to fuel its expansion plans, which include capacity-building and launching new products, a senior company official has said.
“We have embarked on an aggressive plan to expand our capacity and also spread our business in other parts of the country. We plan to invest Rs 120-130 crore this fiscal for this. We will continue to make such investments over the next two-three years,” company director and chief financial officer Mr Srijit Dasgupta said during a conference call here over the weekend.
Mr Dasgupta further said the company, which enjoys 19 per cent of the over Rs 21,000-crore paints market, will be launching three-four products in the premium segment. He, however, refused to divulge about the categories or the time frame.
Within the organised market, Berger is the third largest player with 19 per cent market share after Asian Paints (30 per cent) and Kansai Nerolac (20 per cent), while ICI has 12 per cent.
The company had posted a 16.41 per cent spike in net profit to Rs 37.16 crore for the June quarter compared to Rs 31.92 crore in same quarter last year. During the quarter, its net sales jumped by 30.28 per cent to Rs 693.12 crore.
“Though margins continue to be under pressure due to a lull in our industrial applications business, the rise in prices in the decorative business has aided topline growth. We had increased prices thrice since May,” Mr Dasgupta said.