Piramal Enterprises has been on an acquisition spree and the company's COO said that there is no cash constraint for acquisitions. Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Vijay Shah said, "Historically in Piramals, we have not looked at cash availability to make acquisitions. We have sufficient cash for strategic acquisitions."The company has invested Rs 3000 crore in acquisitions in last 2 years. Its presence in the US market is also growing post the Minrad acquisition and now it has a 30 percent share of US market.
In the consumer products segment, company grew at 28 percent despite the demonetisation impact. "We aim to be number three player in the consumer business segment by 2020," he added. Piramal expects a 15-20 percent growth rate in the future.Shah also said that India provides huge opportunity for financial services business.
Below is the verbatim transcript of Vijay Shah's interview to Ekta Batra & Prashant Nair.
Ekta: The company has been on an acquisition spree. How much cash does the company have on books to fund the acquisitions that you all have made and what is the plan when it does come to inorganic strategies?
A: Historically in Piramal's we have never looked at cash available for making acquisitions. We have sufficient cash for any strategic investments by any of the group companies. However, the seven acquisitions we have made in the last two years, we have invested Rs 3,000 crore but there is no relevance to how much cash was available. So even in future, if we find relevant deals for any of our business to make it stronger strategically, we will put in the money. So cash is never a constraint for our business or acquisitions.
Ekta: Can you give us a sense in terms of how the anaesthetic agent portfolio is doing in the US right now. What is the current growth rate in that space for you?
A: In US we have a negligible market share. However, post the acquisition of Minrad, we have been growing rapidly there. Today we have 30 percent of the share of the US market and we have been growing, not that the market overall growing fast but we have been gaining share as against two of our competitors in the US.
For entire interview, watch accompanying video.
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