Onkar Kanwar is a happy man for after his joint venture with Europe’s biggest tyre maker Michelin, he is now seeing his plant, into which he has put Rs 375 crore, come up in Ranjangaon. And in that happiness he probably decided to give one more shot at his favourite task — taking over Modi Rubber. Kanwar had got into a MoU with the Modi brothers two years ago, and set off bells that he wanted to acquire the company. This was of course fair enough since the acquisition would have made Apollo the largest tyre company in India. But things went topsy-turvy due to differences between the two Modi brothers and Kanwar called off the MoU. Now once again the tycoon was seen busy on this account, having close door meetings with officials from Modi Rubber as well as the creditors of the company, like Tata Steel, Phillips Carbon and Insilco among others. The tycoon, it seems, is now desperate to end this saga once and for all. He has convinced them to withdraw their pending cases and even declared that dues of Rs 25 crores would be paid by him if they did so. The latter were however not too thrilled with Kanwar’s offer and left the round. But Kanwar would not give up. In fact inspired by the bettering Indo-Pakistan relations and thus the hope of better business prospects in the Pakistan market, the tycoon is working as fast as he can to take over Modi. Since its plant in Modi Nagar, will be able to easily produce 50 per cent of the exports for Pakistan, which will be a large market for Apollo. The senior Vice-President of FICCI is a sharp man and has many good reasons behind his every move, and right now he’s not willing to give up Modi Rubber so easily, considering what a wonderful catch it will be! 9-yr friendshipThe last we heard of the tycoon Sanjiv Goenka, he was heading east with his carbon black business. And now we have finally found out why. He is on the verge of signing a nine year deal with the Japanese major Bridgestone. Well, it couldn’t get better than this — the world’s largest player in carbon black getting together with the country’s largest player! Through it 50 per cent of the production from his company Phillips Carbon Black (PCB) will be utilised by Bridgestone. For this the tycoon has already built up and expanded his three plants. The three located at Baroda (Gujarat), Durgapur (West Bengal) and Cochin (Kerala) currently produce Rs1.75 lakh tonnes of carbon black per year. His Baroda and Durgapur plants are being expanded to produce 70,000 and 25 000 tonnes respectively, while a 12 MW power plant and a 24 MW power plant will also be set up at the two places. The tycoon’s expansion plans for the Durgapur plant have been however more on account of the requests made by the CM of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. Now the tycoon is having keen thoughts of setting up a fourth plant in India or abroad after observing the successful utilisation of his present three. If it is in India, we guess it will be in the north, as west, east and south have already been taken up by him. Goenka is targeting a turnover of more than Rs 1000 crore within the next three years. PCB’s income for the year ended September 2003 was Rs 560 crore which has kept Goenka in good cheer. The tycoon has attributed the success of making profits two years in a row to the highly improved production capabilities of his plants. So even though there is a sharp increase in sea freight between the USA and India it is a small matter for the tycoon. He is pretty optimistic for his business, and why shouldn’t he be? After all he has Bridgestone on his side for nine years. Dilip Cherian runs the PR firm Perfect Relations. Write to dilipcherian@now-india.net.in
