Himadri Speciality Chemical Ltd, formerly known as Himadri Chemicals & Industries Ltd, is the flagship of Himadri Group. The Company was incorporated as a private limited company in July 28th, 1987. The Company is primarily engaged in the manufacturing of carbon materials and chemicals. It has operations in India and caters to domestic and international markets. It has a wholly-owned subsidiary in India in the name of Equal Commodeal Private Limited, a step down wholly-owned subsidiary in the name of AAT Global Limited, incorporated in Hong Kong and another step down subsidiary with 94% shareholding in the name of Shandong Dawn Himadri Chemical Industry Limited, incorporated in China. The company was founded to develop, manufacture and market chemical products with a special emphasis on coal tar and its derivatives. They supply coal tar pitch to well-known domestic aluminium and graphite industry players like Nalco, Balco, Hindalco, HEG, Graphite India and international players like Dubal, AOG, Graftech and SGL.
The company has five state-of-the-art coal tar distillation plants in India. The company has two plants in Howrah, West Bengal, one in Hooghly, West Bengal, one in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh and one in Korba, Chhattisgarh.
In November 1991, the company was converted into a public limited company. In the year 1996, the company developed a technology for producing impregnating pitch and in the year 1997, they completed the expansion and modernization of their Howrah and Visakhapatnam plant.
In the year 1999, the company set up third state of art coal tar distillation plant at Howrah. In the year 2001, they formed the corrosion protection division and starts manufacturing coal tar based pipe coating product at Visakhapatnam. In the year 2002, they introduced Liquid Pitch, which are supplied to the consumers in specialized and dedicated tankers. In the year 2003, the company set up their fourth modernized coal tar distillation plant at Hooghly with capacity to produce 1,20,000 MT of Coal Tar Pitch per annum.
During the year 2005-06, the company commissioned a by-product plant in Hooghly for the manufacture of value added products. They also commissioned a pilot plant for the manufacture of advanced carbon material used in lithium ion batteries with in-house technology.
The company expanded the production capacity of the coal tar pitch at Hooghly from 28700 MTPA to 63700 MTPA. The company commenced the supply of coal tar pitch to Dubai Aluminium co, manufacturer of the highest purity aluminium in the world. They also commenced a representative office in China.
During the year 2006-07, the company incorporated a wholly owned subsidiary in Hong Kong to manage their customer presence and facilitate the acquisition strategy. They set up a plant at Korba in Chhattisgarh as a precursor. They commissioned two windmills, which can generate 2.50 MW wind energy in the Dhule district of Maharashtra.
In the same year, the company completed the first phase of expansion at Mahistikry, West Bengal to manufacture naphthalene. Also, they installed a granulation unit used for cooling coal tar pitch from more than 300 degrees centigrade to atmospheric for onward conversion into solid pencil form. The company expanded the coal tar distillation capacity in Hooghly from 91000 MTPA to 170000 MTPA.
During the year 2007-08, the company commissioned their melting plant in Korba plants to build dedicated melting facilities near major customers' plant to accelerate just-in-time delivery. The company has undertaken a project at Mahistikry in West Bengal for the manufacture of Carbon Black with an annual capacity of 50000 MT and a captive power plant of 12 MW capacity based on waste heat gas through forward integration.
In September 2008, the company through their wholly owned subsidiary company, Himadri Global Investment Ltd entered into a joint venture contract, with Chinese company to takeover existing coal tar distillation plant in Xiaoyi, Shanxi.
During the financial year ended 31 March 2014, Himadri Chemicals & Industries completed its capacity expansion for its distillation plant at Mahistikry for the manufacture of Coal Tar Pitch by adding 1.50 Lakhs TPA .The company during the FY 2014 continued to penetrate export markets for key products such as carbon black, coal tar pitch, SNF and LC oil. These markets include countries such as Argentina, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, South Africa, Malaysia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nigeria, USA, U.A.E., Senegal, Poland and, more recently, Turkey, and Egypt.
During the year, Himadri received Terms of Reference (TOR) from the state-level Expert Appraisal Committee, West Bengal, for its 8 MW power plant.During FY 2014, the company incurred capital expenditure aggregating to Rs. 8,429.76 Lakhs (including Capital work in-progress).
During the financial year ended 31 March 2015, Himadri Chemicals & Industries proposed to set up a Melting Plant (Coal tar Pitch) at Sambalpur in the state of Odisha to cater the demand of the customers located in the surroundings of Sambalpur. The cost of the project will be financed through internal accruals.
During FY 2015, the company incurred capital expenditure aggregating to Rs. 2,098.62 Lakhs (including Capital work in-progress).
In FY 2015, the company's carbon black division improved its performance by implementing a number of strategic initiatives, which enabled the division to improve its profitability on a sustainable basis. The initiatives covered the entire gamut of the business sourcing, manufacturing efficiency, rationalizing market segments, addition of new customers, price increase where margins were low and cost control. It introduced new grades in the niche markets, which would insulate it from competitive pressures.
During the financial year ended 31 March 2016, 12,300 Deep Discount Debentures (DDD) were converted into 32,675,297 equity shares of the company at a price of Rs 19/- per share with the approval of Shareholders by passing a special resolution at the Extra-Ordinary General Meeting held on 22 March 2016 and upon such conversion, the resulted amount aggregating to Rs 2,152.50 lakhs lying in Debenture Redemption Reserve Account against such DDD was reversed and taken back into the credit of General Reserve Account of the company.
During FY 2015-16, Himadri Chemicals & Industries' cash outflow on account of addition to fixed assets was aggregating to Rs 1,325.07 lakhs (including Capital work in-progress and capital advances).
During the year under review, the company reduced its exposure to foreign currency loans in order to de-risk itself from the vagaries of currency fluctuations.
Himadri Speciality Chemical's Melting Plant (Coal tar Pitch) at Sambalpur in the state of Odisha became operational from August 2016.
During the financial year ended 31 March 2017, Himadri Speciality Chemical launched 5 grades of speciality carbon black and introduced special food grade carbon black. In the carbon black business, the company initiated several process improvements like reactor design modifications and debottlenecking of key equipment for consistency in quality and efficient capacity utilizations. The company installed microscope, AHD/PHD analysers and developed statistical process control techniques for better quality, reduced wastage and improvement in overall yield.
In Naphthalene business, the company developed superior refined quality mothballs for pharmaceuticals applications during the year.
In 2016-17, the company's cash outflow on account of addition to fixed assets was aggregating to Rs 1,153.49 lakhs (including Capital work in-progress and capital advances).
The company provided a loan of Rs 154.45 lakhs to Equal Commodeal Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, during the financial year 2016-17 for business purpose.
During the financial year ended 31 March 2018, Himadri Speciality Chemical incurred capital expenditure on account of addition to fixed assets aggregating to Rs. 5,205.17 lakhs (including Capital work-in- progress and capital advances).
During the financial year 2018-19, M/s Himadri Dyes & Intermediates Limited ceases to be associate and Modern Hi-rise Private Limited a promoter group company has become the associate of the company.
During the financial year ended 31 March 2019, Himadri Speciality Chemical incurred capital expenditure on account of addition to fixed assets aggregating to Rs. 20,058.34 lakhs (including Capital work-in- progress and capital advances).
During the financial year 2018-19, the company has given a loan of Rs 209.87 lakhs to one of its wholly owned subsidiary company, Equal Commodeal Private Limited, for its business purpose.
During the financial year 2018-19, pursuant to merger and de-merger in between promoter group companies viz; Himadri Dyes & Intermediates Limited, Himadri Industries Limited, Himadri Coke & Petro Limited (being the transferor companies) with Modern Hi-rise Private Limited (transferee company) and Shresth Merchandise Private Limited (resulting company) and demerger of cold storage undertaking of Himadri Industries Ltd with Shresth Merchandise Private Limited as sanctioned by the Hon'ble Bench of NCLT, Kolkata, pursuant to section 230 to 232 of the companies act, 2013 and rules made thereunder, all assets and liabilities (including shares of Himadri Speciality Chemical Ltd) of the transferor companies will vest with and transferred to and in favor of the transferee Company i.e. M/s Modern Hi-rise Private Limited; the company held equity shares in transferor companies 1 and 2 and pursuant to the scheme of Amalgamation, the company has received certain equity shares as well as optionally convertible preference shares from the transferee company as consideration for merger. And also pursuant to demerger of cold storage business of Himadri Industries Limited (demerged company) with Shresth Merchandise Private Limited (resulting company), the company has received certain equity shares as well as redeemable preference Shares from the resulting company as consideration for merger.
The company bagged Gold Award & Top 100 in International Annual Report Competition 2019 by League of American Communications Professionals LLC (LACP).
As on 31 March 2020,the Company has two subsidiary Companies 1) AAT Global Limited in Hong Kong in which the Company holds 100% equity, 2) Shandong Dawn Himadri Chemical Industry Ltd ('SDHCIL') in China, in which the Company holds 94% equity through its wholly owned subsidiary Company, AAT Global Limited.
During the financial year 2019-20, Company's wholly owned Indian Subsidiary Company, Equal Commodeal Private Limited (ECPL') merged with its Holding Company pursuant to the order of the Hon'ble National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Kolkata Bench, dated 14 October 2019.
During the financial year 2019-20, the Company incurred capital expenditure on account of addition to fixed assets aggregating to Rs 24,760.63 lakhs (including Capital Work InProgress and capital advances).
The company has been recognised as the Fastest Growing Company in ET Bengal Corporate Awards 2020.