United Phosphorus plans to merge Agrodan with UK subsidiary

It is a market leader in technical grades of pesticides and the organo-phosphate range of pesticides.According to company chairman amp; managing director RD Shroff, the Danish firm8217;s formulations unit will be closed and relocated to UK where it has two units manufacturing technical pesticides including herbicides, fungicides and insecticides through United Phosphorus UK, which also has a formulations plant where these technical pesticides are formulated.

United Phosphorus had acquired a 60 per cent stake in Agrodan last year. The company8217;s turnover is close to Rs35 crore. Agrodan, whose brand name is very popular in the region, will be converted into a marketing base, Shroff said.

The acquisition of Agrodan gave United Phosphorus an entry into the Scandinavian and Russian markets for some of its products. Besides, Agrodan has an established name in the northern European markets.

While in most of the countries, the company has promoted its products through its own brand name, in Denmark it leverages on the popular brand of Agrodan.

United Phosphorus UK, whose turnover is around Rs 200 crore, is the company8217;s largest global subsidiary. The British plant in Sandbach is expanding into newer products. A new plant for the manufacture of new herbicide Norbromide 8212; Devrinol has been built in UK. United Phosphorus has acquired 90 per cent of the world market for Devrinol, Shroff said.

The company, operating in around 100 countries, has increased its world-wide company profit to Rs 60 crore. Of this, the Indian profit was around Rs 22 crore while the global profitwas around Rs 33 crore. Due to unstable conditions in the domestic market, profits have dropped from Rs 27 crore last year.

The company has established fully-owned subsidiary companies in Australia, Zambia, Russia, Mexico, Bangladesh and the US. Besides having manufacturing units in UK and Denmark, it has got business offices and trade representatives in Sri Lanka, South Africa, Argentina and Brazil. All these companies in different parts of the world are controlled by a holding company Bio Win Ltd in Mauritius.

United Phosphorus has targeted a worldwide sales turnover of Rs 1,500 crore by 2000-2001, and expects sales to increase by 30 per cent to 40 per cent every year. The global sales turnover of United Phosphorus stood at Rs 737 crore for 1997-98. The group8217;s net profit during this period was Rs 33.76 crore.