Tata Chemicals expects profits from Britain, Kenya plants now

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SME Times News Bureau | 20 Dec, 2014
Following the restructuring of its plants in Britain and Kenya, Tata Chemicals (TCL) is hoping to generate profits from its plants in Kenya this year and later in 2015 in Britain, a senior company official said Kolkata Friday.

"The Britain plant will be profitable after September 2015 and the Kenya plant will generate profits from the December quarter," executive director and CFO P. K. Ghose said on the sidelines of a book launch commemorating 75 years of TCL.

However, the company is not eyeing any new acquisitions at the moment and wants to consolidate its soda-ash, fertilizers line of business.

"The restructuring process is over and we are not considering new acquisitions," Ghose said to queries on TCL's global expansion plans.

In 2012-13, the company had closed down an old plant in Northwich in the country of Cheshire in Britain. Thereafter, it put up a new bi-carbonate plant maintaining its total plant count to two in the country. It had also reduced its workforce by 220 personnel.

In Kenya, where it had two plants, TCL closed down one citing "too much dependency on oil" which was pulling up operational costs.

"We had closed one unit (Kenya) and the other unit has started functioning," Ghose said.

TCL had closed down its Britain plant in 2013 following "high and rising energy prices" and had said the restructuring would enable its European operations to reconfigure a combined heat and power plant supplying power and steam to make it more sustainable and reduce energy costs.