Aditya Birla Group Eyes Rs 10,000 Cr Paints Revenue

Panipat, Feb 22 (PTI) Aditya Birla group is targeting an initial revenue of Rs 10,000 crore and profitability within three years of full operations of its new venture of decorative paints business, Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said on Thursday.

The group on Thursday commenced operations at three plants for its new decorative paints business under Birla Opus.

"Our vision is ambitious and our initial goal is clear, to clock revenues of Rs 10,000 crore and turn profitable not later than the third year of full scale operations," Birla said, while launching the Birla Opus Paints Business and inaugurating three Birla Opus paints plants at Panipat (Haryana), Ludhiana (Punjab) and Cheyyar (Tamil Nadu).

Grasim Industries, the flagship firm of the group, had last year announced its foray into the decorative paints business committing investments of Rs 10,000 crore with plans to set up six manufacturing plants in India by 2025.

The plants, located in Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and West Bengal, will have a total capacity of 1,332 million litres per annum (MLPA) to serve demand centres across the country.

The three other plants at Chamarajanagar (Karnataka), Mahad (Maharashtra) and Kharagpur (West Bengal) units will commence production over the course of FY25.

In September last year the company had unveiled the brand name of its paints business 'Birla Opus'.

The market launch of Birla Opus paints is scheduled in the first week of next month.

This marks the group's entry into the rapidly expanding Rs 80,000 crore Indian decorative paints market.

Birla Opus business is being set up by the group's flagship company Grasim Industries Ltd.

In his address, Birla said India today is teeming with dynamism, audacity, and a penchant for disruption.

"This India finds a reflection in our paints venture, Birla Opus. The Aditya Birla Group's deep insight into the building materials ecosystem, honed over the years, offers us a unique vantage point," he said.

Further, he said Birla Opus, therefore, is poised to transform the paint industry with a 40 per cent addition to current capacity.

"No paint company globally has ever launched in one shot -- factories, operations, products, and services, at the scale that we are about to undertake," Birla claimed.

Birla Opus products will be available in Punjab, Haryana, and Tamil Nadu from mid-March 2024 and across all 1 lakh population towns in India by July 2024, he said.

The company aims to expeditiously expand its distribution to over 6,000 towns by the fiscal year end.

Later in the day addressing a press conference, Birla said, "By July of this year, we will have a presence in towns with one lakh population and that will reach to towns with 50,000 population by the end of FY25."

He further said the goal of Birla Opus is to become the number two player in the Indian decorative paints market.

Asked if the company is looking for acquisitions for growth, he replied in negative.

"We are only looking at organic growth, the fact that we've come up with such as capacity...I don't think we need to look at inorganic growth. That's not an opportunity," Birla said.

Commissioning three plants at a time, he said, "As a group, I have to say we've never done that before." Birla Opus' capacity "will be more than the current capacities of the number two, three and four players put together", he added.

Currently, the market is led by Asian Paints, followed by Berger Paints, Nerolac and Akzo Novel (Dulux).

Birla Opus Business Head Himanshu Kapania, who is also a Director at Aditya Birla Group, said out of the Rs 10,000-crore investment announced, Rs 5,000 crore has already been spent and "commitment has crossed Rs 7,000 crore".

"By the time all the plants have been rolled out, we would have spent the entire Rs 10,000 crore," Kapania added.

The company will leverage on the distribution network of Birla White cement to reach pan India.