Andrew Yule & Company Ltd. (AYCL) is a nationalized enterprise in the business of both manufacturing and sale of Black Tea, Transformers, Regulators/ Rectifiers, Circuit Breakers, Switches, Industrial Fans, Tea Machinery, Turnkey jobs etc. It has 2 Operating Units out of which 1 in Kalyani West Bengal and 1 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and 12 Tea Estates out of which 7 are situated in Assam and 4 are situated in Dooars and 1 in Darjeeling.
Andrew Yule & Company Limited (AYCL) was incorporated in May 26, 1919 as a Private Sector Company to work as Managing Agency.
After India gained independence from the British empire, the company was converted into public limited company in the year 1948.
With the abolition of Managing Agency System, the Company lost its traditional business and Government of India acquired the Company in 1979. AYCL is a Schedule-'B' CPSE in Medium and Light Engineering sector together with Tea producing and manufacturing business under the administrative control of M/o. Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, D/o Heavy Industry with 89.25% shareholding by the Government.
The Company became a Central Public Sector Enterprise (Schedule B Company) in the year 1979 with the acquisition of 49% equity share in 1974 and 2% in 1979 by Government of India. At present, Govt. of India holds 97.46%, Financial Institutions holds 0.33% and the balance 2.21% is widely held by Public, Bodies Corporate etc.
The company originally exported tea in bulk to the USSR. In late 1993, they entered the domestic market with their first brand, Yule Red. During the year 1995-96, they obtained ISO 9001 certification for their Electrical Division. During the year 1999-2000, tea estate in Assam obtained accreditation of ISO 9002 system. Also, the Mim Tea Estate at Darjeeling obtained ISO 14001 Environment Management System which is a rare distinction in the tea industry.
During the year 2007-08, as a part of the company revival package, they were required to spin off their electrical and heavy engineering business Hence the company formed two new wholly owned subsidiaries, namely Yule Engineering Ltd and Yule Electrical Ltd as per BIFR directive.
During the year 2010, the company discontinued certain operations from the Engineering division, which included air handling unit (AHU), core lamination project (CLP) and project, and Electrical division, which included Port Engineering Works (PEW), turnkey and agency.
During the year, as per the BIFR sanctioned scheme, the company's divested 26% holdings in the joint venture company, Phoenix Yule Ltd, where Phoenix AG of Germany was the joint venture partner with 74% stake. In addition, the company received from Phoenix Yule Ltd a sum of Rs1.30 crores by granting them to use their 'YULE' Trade Mark for a period of two years and Rs 2.40 crores for agreeing not to compete with them for a period of ten years, from the date of the Agreement.
A per the BIFR sanctioned Scheme, the company decided to disinvest their 15.20% stakes in DPSC Ltd. SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd emerged as the highest bidder for the acquisition of stakes in DPSC Ltd.
As per the Rehabilitation Scheme sanctioned by The Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR), two 100% subsidiaries namely, Yule Engineering Ltd. and Yule Electrical Ltd. were incorporated during the year 2010-11.
However during 2020-21, business operations of Hooghly Printing Co. Ltd., one of the wholly-owned subsidiary company was merged with Andrew Yule & Company Ltd. (AYCL) effective from 4th June, 2021, the Appointed Date. And resulting to merger, whole Undertaking of the Transferor Company i.e. HPCL along with all its assets, liabilities, debts, duties and obligations, stood transferred to and vested in the Transferee Company i.e. AYCL. The Electrical-Kolkata Operation (E-KO) was also closed consequent to merger effective from November 25, 2021.
During the financial year 2021-22, AYCL had reduced its stake in The New Beerbhoom Coal Co. Ltd. (NBC) from 32.95% to 18% and in Katras Jherriah Coal Co. Ltd. (KJC) from 31.88% to 18% and as a result, both the non-functional Coal Companies, viz. NBC and KJC ceased to be Associate Companies of AYCL.