Calcutta, March 13: Darjeeling Plantation Industries on Monday announced the merger of two recently-acquired tea companies and a distributor of edibles with itself. Post-merger, the entity will be renamed DPIL Ltd since the tea estates of the company will now stretch to Assam instead of Darjeeling alone.The promoters' holding in the merged entity will come down to 51 per cent from 73 per cent at present, while the public's stake will increase to 49 per cent from around 27 per cent now.The merger petition is likely to be filed by March 15 before the Calcutta high court, according to chairman VK Goenka.
Darjeeling Plantation had acquired two estates - Katalguri Tea Estate in Dooars region of north Bengal and The Eriabarie Tea Co Ltd which owns Tippuk Tea Estate in Doom Dooma area of upper Assam - for a total of Rs 38 crore.The third company, Lectra Tracom, is a distributor of edibles in West Asia and has a tie-up with Pineapple Supermarket chain in Iran.
The merger has been proposed to consolidate theworking of the two tea companies. The boards of Katalguri and Eriabarie approved the merger on March 11 this year.
Under the merger proposal, the swap ratio has been fixed at 1:10 and 1:3 respectively, which means that Katalguri shareholders will get 10 fully paid-up shares of Darjeeling Plantation for every 100 held by them, while Lectra Tracom shareholders will get 30 shares of Darjeeling Plantation for every 90 held by them.
Since Eriabarie is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Darjeeling Plantation, its shares will be extinguished after the proposed merger.
Lectra Tracom also owns 20,000 sqft of floor space in Calcutta, worth Rs 10 crore at current prices. Goenka plans to shift the head office of the flagship company Warren Tea and Darjeeling Plantation to the new premises on April 12. The merged entity - representing six estates in Darjeeling and those of Eriabarie and Katalguri - will have a total expected crop of 3.2 million kg. Of this, 1.2 million kg will be from Eriabarie, 1 million kg fromKatalguri and the balance will be from the six other estates in Darjeeling. The new company is expected to have a turnover of Rs 70 crore for the year to March 31, 2000. According to Goenka, the company has invested around Rs 43 crore over the last couple of years in acquiring gardens like Moondakotee and Dhajea followed by Tuppuk Tea of Eriabarie and Katalguri Tea Estate.
It has also paid Rs 17 crore in Swiss company Alpine Labs AG for the technology to develop high- yielding hybrid seeds and synthetic seeds. These are being developed through tissue-culture and bio-technology. Scientists of Darjeeling Plantations are working on this project, which is expected to be completed by July 2000. Goenka pointed out that after the tests are endorsed by the Swiss company, Darjeeling Plantation will start marketing the clones in the industry.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.