Bannari Amman Group is one of the largest Industrial Conglomerates in South India with wide spectrum of manufacturing, trading and Service activities. Manufacturing and trading include sugar, alcohol, liquor, granite etc. The service sector has wind power energy, education etc.
Bannari Amman Sugars Limited (BASL) was incorporated in December 1983. The company was promoted by S V Balasubramanian and K S Thirumalaiswamy to manufacture sugar in Southern India. Now, it has scattered its activities in Distillery, Granites, Co-generation of Power, Wind Mills operations.
BASL came out with a public issue in Sep' 1985, to set up a sugar plant in Alathukombai in Tamil Nadu. This plant was commissioned with initial capacity of 1250 tonnes of cane crush per day. It manufactures sugar using the conventional double sulphitation process. The company's success in its first venture, led the company to make a next step towards its way. In 1992 the company had set up a sugar mill with a daily cane crushing capacity of 2500 TCD in Alaganchi village, Mysore district in the state of Karnataka. This project was financed by rights issue of zero interest fully convertible debentures of Rs. 1968.75 lakhs, secured redeemable non-convertible debentures for Rs. 14 crores issued to Citibank N.A. and term loan of Rs. 8 crores received from ICICI Ltd. Total capacity of sugar mills in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka increased to 4000 TCD & 5000 TCD over the period.
The company diversified its activity in several segments. As a first step, it started to manufacture Citric Acid in 1987 with annual capacity of 5,400 tonnes. Subsequently it diversified into the lucrative field of granite exports by setting up a 100% EOU in Nov' 1990, at Alathukombai to produce 50,000 sq mtr of polished granite slabs and 60,000 sq mtr of granite tiles per annum. It has acquired and taken on lease several quarries in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan.
In 1995, M/s Coimbatore Alcohol and Chemicals Limited (CACL) amalgamated with BASL. The company allotted 20,00,000 equity shares of Rs. 10/- each at a premium of Rs. 80/- per share to the shareholders of CACL as per the scheme of amalgamation.
The company made its next diversification for Co-generation of power in the year 2000. It has set up a co-generation power plant with an installed capacity of 16 MW in the sugar factory in Karnataka. The company has also set up a 20 MW co-generation plant at Alathukombai in Aug' 2002 and an additional 20 MW co-generation plant at Alaganchi in Mar' 2004. Total capacity of co-generation power plant stands at 56 MW.
During 2004-05, the company has diversified into windmill operation and commissioned 7 wind turbine generator at Radhapuram in the state of Tamil Nadu. The windmill has started its operation.
During 2005-06, the company proposes to increase the installed capacity of the sugar unit in Karnataka from 5000 TCD to 7500 TCD.
The Scheme of Amalgamation of Maheswara Sugars Limited with the Company was completed in November, 2007. As per the Scheme, company has allotted 19,00,000 equity shares of Rs. 10/- each and 18,46,000 9% redeemable non-cumulative preference shares of Rs. 100/-each to the shareholders of Maheswara Sugars Limited. The Sugar Unit III was acquired by way of Amalgamation with effect from 1.1.2007.
In 2010, the Company established a sugar factory (Unit-IV) at Thiruvannamalai with a capacity of 5000 TCD and also established a Co-generation Plant with a capacity of 28.8 MW power in Unit - IV.
The expansion of crushing capacity from 2500 TCD to 3600 TCD in the sugar factory at Kunthur Village Karnataka was completed and the factory commenced its operation with expanded capacity from 27.8.2014. It established 20 MW Co-generation Plant in Unit - III.
In 2016, the Company took over Unit-V sugar factory at Thirukovilur with a capacity of 3600 TCD and a Co-generation Plant of 25 MW.