Cement maker The India Cements LtdIndia Cements Ltd plans to increase the price of cement per bag by Rs 55, which will be implemented in phases from June, a top official said on Friday.
The city-owned company plans to sell some portion of 26,000 sq ft of land owned by the company, which would be used for repayment of debts and to improve its manufacturing facilities, according to India Cements Vice Chairman N Srinivasan.
He said that the price of cement per bag is going to be increased by 20 on June 1, by another 15 on 15th June and another 20 on the first of July.
He said that the company's profit and loss account should look better because of the increase in cement per bag and the cost increases the company was facing.
Srinivasan said that please do not compare me with others,'' as asked about cement makers planning to cut retail price of cement per bag. I have a job to do, my job is chief executive of a cement company. I have to do something to increase the price if I lose more money because all of my costs have gone up. He said that the increase in cement price would not affect sales and India Cements has a'very good brand pull. It is for two reasons why it will not affect sales - one, I give the best quality of cement and second-people say I am a good manufacturer, I have been there for 75 years and my brand pull is very good,'' he said. He said on the plan to monetise its assets, "what we plan to do is that surplus land we will monetise and use that for two reasons - do our repayments and also make some improvements in plants so that my costs go down substantially." I will monetise. I repaid Rs 551 crore last year, but this year about 500 crore has to be repaid. He said I will refinance or repay.
Srinivasan said that the company has formed a 'internal committee' that would look at the sale of the properties in order to execute the monetisation plan.
I put in a group. They told them how much money we need, how much money we need to be able to borrow from the group. We have estimated what we need to do for plant improvement. It is surplus land, whether it is in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu or any place they can sell, he said.
He stated that the company was not planning to sell the assets in 'distress' and to ensure that his liquidity was good.