Patanjali to enter dairy, apparel biz this year
Patanjali Ayurved Ltd will launch products in the dairy and apparel business this calendar year, said its founder Baba Ramdev.
“With this we will be in 11 categories,” Ramdev said on the sidelines of Globoil India 2017, an edible oil conclave. “The total market size (of these two categories) will be ₹20 lakh crore. We will enter both within this year.”
Ramdev also took aim at Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), India’s largest consumer packaged goods firm.
“We are number one in trust and we will be No. 1 in turnover in a year,” he said. “We have done shirshasan (laid down) of many large companies. Only Unilever is left.”
“What are foreign companies doing for India? What has Hindustan Unilever done for Hindustan, what gate has Colgate opened, and what birds has Nestlé given flight to?” Ramdev asked at the event.
HUL, the maker of iconic brands including Lux, Surf Excel, Fair & Lovely and Kissan, had an annual turnover of ₹34,487 crore in fiscal year 2017 (FY17), making it the country’s largest fast-moving consumer goods company. That same year, Patanjali Ayurved’s turnover stood at ₹10,561 crore and the firm announced it will cross sales of ₹20,000-25,000 crore in FY18, reported on May 4. The company sells Ayurvedic personal care and food products, including flagship toothpaste brand Dant Kanti. It launched a packaged drinking water brand called Divya Jal last month, reported on August 30.
The government’s disinvestment arm has invited expressions of interest from investment bankers and law firms to advise it on the strategic stake sale in state-run Air India Ltd. In a newspaper advertisement on Thursday, the department of investment and public asset management (DIPAM), sought the appointment of at least one legal adviser and two investment bankers.
DIPAM said the government will also give away management control of Air India in the process. “The government of India ‘in principle’ has decided to consider the disinvestment of the AI Group as a whole or part thereof through strategic sale with transfer of management control,” DIPAM said in its advertisement seeking proposals by October 12.
The law firm, it said, should have experience in mergers and acquisitions, takeovers, strategic disinvestment and private equity transaction.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, in a meeting on June 28, gave an in-principle approval for the strategic disinvestment of Air India and its five subsidiaries.
On August 31, a group of ministers, headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley, held a second round of discussions on privatisation of Air India and said the group has cleared the appointment of transaction advisers after the hourlong discussions.
Apart from Jaitley, civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, commerce minister Suresh Prabhu, railway minister Piyush Goyal and road transport minister Nitin Gadkari are part of the group of ministers looking at Air India’s privatisation.
The group is looking into treatment of Air India’s unsustainable debt, hiving off certain assets to a shell company and strategic disinvestment of three profit-making subsidiaries, among other aspects.
At least three firms—InterGlobe Aviation (which runs IndiGo), Bird Group and Turkey’s Celebi—have formally evinced interest in Air India’s privatisation and have written to the civil aviation ministry in this regard.