Coromandel enters speciality & industrial chemicals

Coromandel International, leading agri solutions provider and part of Chennai-based 54,722 crore Murugappa group, on Wednesday announced its foray into speciality & industrial chemicals, contract development & manufacturing organisation (CDMO) business and expansion of its crop protection chemical business.

The Hyderabad-based company plans to invest `1,000 crore over the next two years in the new businesses and leverage the macro tailwinds in the chemicals sector to build a business of scale.

The new entry into new businesses is in line with the company’s strategy to establish a sizeable presence in the crop protection chemicals business and leverage its deep technical capabilities and best in class infrastructure to enter into adjacencies like CDMO, speciality and industrial chemicals.

Arun Alagappan, executive vice-chairman, Coromandel International, said, ″Coromandel’s current capabilities in crop protection chemicals offers a strong starting position and flexibility for play in speciality and industrial chemicals. With India’s high import dependency in the specialty chemicals, global supply chain diversification trends and strong policy push by the government, these businesses offer significant growth prospects. Entry into CDMO business is a strategic portfolio choice where Coromandel can leverage its expertise in handling complex chemistries at commercial scale and strong development capabilities across various chemistries.″

Scaling up of the company’s crop protection chemicals business will significantly help leverage the growth opportunities in India and the global markets. The company plans to set up new multi product plants in two of its manufacturing locations apart from purchase of additional land for future expansions, he said.

The company’s crop protection business had registered a growth of 4% in revenue for the third quarter of FY’23 and 3% on a year-to-date basis. Domestic formulation witnessed good growth with positive traction from the new products that were launched during the year and the prior year. Domestic formulation witnessed good growth with positive traction from the new product launches made during the year. A new bio insecticide under the brand name of Azamax was launched by the business during the quarter. With this, seven new products have been introduced during the current year. The crop protection business continues to focus on refreshing and strengthening its portfolio and has lined up two new technical and three new formulations to be introduced in the fourth quarter.

In a major boost to drive sustainable practices in agriculture, Coromandel International has recently developed a nano technology based fertiliser, nano DAP,  from its R&D centre based at IIT Bombay.

Coromandel has been conducting extensive field studies on product efficacy, biosafety and toxicity for nano DAP in different agro-climatic zones with leading agricultural universities and the trial results have been encouraging. The company’s application with the government of India for commercial release of nano DAP is in the advanced stage of approval.

The company had recently invested Rs 20 crore in Chennai-based drone startup, Dhaksha Unmanned Systems through its venture capital arm, Dare Ventures.  Coromandel has been making strategic investments in technology-led agriculture and is looking  to use AgTech to support in increasing farmer’s productivity through adoption of precision agriculture.  The company clocked a turnover of `  19,255 crores in  FY21-22 and has 17 manufacturing facilities, producing wide range of nutrient and crop protection products, which are marketed through an extensive network of dealers and its own retail centres.