SRF acquiring South African belting fabrics firm

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New Delhi, July 14

Technical textiles and refrigerant gases manufacturer SRF Ltd on Monday announced the signing of a definitive agreement for the acquisition of the belting fabrics business of South Africa-based Industex Technical Textiles (Pty) Ltd.

The South African firm has an annual production capacity of approximately 3,500 tonnes of belting fabrics with annual sales of around $16 million, an SRF release said. With this deal, SRF improves its world ranking from the third largest player to the second largest in the belting fabrics business, it said.

The acquisition is being routed through one of SRF's international subsidiaries and would cost approximately Rs 20 crore, including working capital, the release said. Post acquisition, the entity will be known as SRF Industex Belting (Pty) Ltd. Speaking about the deal, Mr Ashish Bharat Ram, Managing Director, SRF Ltd said, "We are excited about SRF's second acquisition in just over a month, as it firmly places SRF's belting business on a global map. More importantly, it gives us an opportunity to enter Africa, a continent of the future.

"The mining industry, which is the largest consuming sector for the belting fabrics business, is growing rapidly over there and it will be our endeavour to expand capacity and develop other synergies with our Indian operations at the earliest."

Currently, SRF has a capacity of 7,500 tonnes a year of belting fabrics, which are manufactured in its plant at Trichy. The deal comes close on the heels of a Rs 100-crore definitive agreement signed by SRF for the acquisition of Thai Baroda Industries Ltd, a Thailand-based tyre cord company.

Taken from Business Line

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