BILT to list Sabah's Dutch holding co in 12 months

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B Hari Haran, Group Director-Finance at India's largest paper company Ballarpur Industries (BILT) which owns 5% of the USD 4 billion Avantha Group has said that it hopes to list Sabah's Dutch holding company overseas in the next 12 moths. The valuation of the holding is a whopping USD 1.5 billion. A draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) has also been filed with SEBI to list Avantha Power at the earliest.

"When we restructured and created the holding company, the objective was to list it and we are looking at, we are evaluating the possibility of listing that company. We'll take a call in next 12 months," he said, adding, that if one had to get a return for private equity investors, then the valuation had to be close to USD 1.5-1.6 billion for that entity.

He further said that the company would look at how it wanted to reward minority shareholders.

BILT has 80% stake in Dutch holding company that owns Sabah. It had acquired Sabah Forest Industries for USD 261 million in 2006. Sabah Forest Industries is Malaysia's largest pulp and paper mill.

Paper prices have gone up from USD 800 to USD 1000. Internationally also, paper prices and uncoated paper prices are firming up. Exporting paper from India, uncoated paper are priced at USD 1000. The company expects the domestic paper prices also to go up. Pulp prices have been on a rise. Pulp prices have also touched USD 800 from USD 700 last quarter.

Commenting on the same, Haran said, prices in April had increase by 5%.

For complete interview, watch video.