Manali Petrochemicals Limited (MPL) on Wednesday said its Board has approved an additional investment of up to $35 million in its wholly-owned subsidiary AMCHEM Speciality Chemicals Private Limited, Singapore, for potential overseas acquisitions.
In a regulatory filing, the Chennai-based petrochemical manufacturer said the investment would be in one or more tranches and further details will be furnished in due course.
Set up in 2015-16 to expand Manali Petrochemicals’ global footprint, AMCHEM Speciality Chemicals Private Limited, Singapore holds the foreign assets of the parent company. The subsidiary posted a total income of $20.22 million (₹153.31 crore) and a profit of $0.43 million (₹3.22 crore) in FY22.
In its FY22 annual report, MPL said it has invested $16.32 million (₹110.32 crore) in the wholly-owned subsidiary to partly fund the acquisition of Notedome Ltd, UK, and also for further exploratory work. During 2016-17, AMCHEM Singapore set up AMCHEM Speciality Chemicals UK Limited as its fully-owned subsidiary, which acquired Notedome Ltd. AMCHEM, UK and Notedome are step down subsidiaries of MPL.
“AMCHEM Singapore continues to explore further opportunities for acquisition of overseas facilities for enhancing MPL’s global presence, and also has interests in trading, transaction facilitations, business and project consultancy,” MPL said in its annual report.
Q2 profit down
Meanwhile, the company’s consolidated net profit fell over 90 per cent to ₹11.68 crore in Q2 FY23 as against a net profit of ₹117.28 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal. Consolidated total income fell 37 per cent to ₹292.04 crore (₹440.97 crore).
In a press release, Muthukrishnan Ravi, MD of MPL and CEO, Petrochemicals Division of AM International Group, said, the downtrend in economy impelled by global events continues to affect the performance since the last quarter of the previous year. “Though sales volume could be maintained, product prices had been falling on the one hand and the input costs going up on the other, wearing down the margins,” he added.