Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited (PESL), the wholly owned subsidiary of Pokarna Limited, has secured exclusive rights to use Bretonstone technology in India through March 2020. Pokarna has used Bretonstone technology since 2009, when the company first began processing quartz in its Visakhapatnam production facility.

Following this development, PESL plans to expand quartz surfaces production capacity by 130 per cent by setting up a Greenfield production facility with investment of Rs 325 crore. This investment is expected to be completed by June 2018 and PESL will finance this capacity expansion through a combination of free cash flow/internal accruals of Rs 75 crores and loan facilities of Rs 250 crore.

PESL has secured sanction from its lead banker for the term loan of Rs 250 crore for funding this capacity expansion.

Gautam Chand Jain, Managing Director of PESL said: “We remain committed towards investing in business expected to create significant value for our stakeholders in the long term and we firmly believe that Quartz Surfaces business is primed for growth. Securing exclusive licence for Bretonstone technology for India was an integral piece of our strategy and we are pleased to be Breton’s only India Bretonstone technology partner”.

The Investment in new facility is part of the strategic plan to maintain both export and domestic competitiveness, whilst increasing capacity to meet the growing demands for quartz surfaces in Indian and global market. The new facility will be one of the most-advanced Bretonstone plants of its kind in the world, covering a production area of approximately 50,000 sq. m. and deploying the latest generation machines and state of the art robots.

The expansion combined with newer technology and exclusive licence for India will not only increase PESL’s production capacity, but also will provide competitive and strategic benefits that will serve its long-term growth plans, most significantly the related improvement in delivery times, tapping India market and realising growth strategy for long term shareholder value creation.

This project would create upto 500 new jobs and generate 3,000 indirect jobs through spin-off employment and support Telangana businesses in PESL`s supply chain, over a period of next two years.

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