Crystal Group aiming at overseas acquisition

Pesticides maker Crystal Group said it has appointed Ernst & Young to consult it on an overseas acquisition, which may cost up to Rs 40 crore.

"We are very to keen on acquiring one firm overseas and have appointed Ernst & Young to guide us on that. The deal might be completed in the current fiscal," Crystal Group Chairman N K Agarwal told PTI here.

Agarwal said that Crystal group was looking to buy one sick company either in Britain or in an African country in order to get rid of the huge upfront cost needed for any profit-making firm and to market its produce from India in the developing nations in Africa.

"The target company has to have export registrations, which would facilitate in marketing of products in various parts of the world," he said.

Stating that the cost of acquisition could be in the range between Rs 30 and Rs 40 crore, Agarwal said that the entire cost would be funded through internal accruals.

Crystal Phosphates, the flagship company of the group, has two pesticides manufacturing plants in Jammu and Haryana with an annual capacity of 4,000 tonnes.

The company also imports active ingredients worth around Rs 250 crore from China and formulate them in its plants for marketing in the Indian market.

Active ingredients are used to make formulations which are familiar as pesticides. Indias pesticides market is now pegged at Rs 6,000 crore. The industry exports Rs 3,000 crore worth of pesticides a year.

The group had recorded a turnover of Rs 600 crore last fiscal and aims to clock around Rs 1,000 crore topline in the current fiscal.