Goenka group planning to invest in Bihar

Sanjiv Goenka group, a major business conglomerate today rolled out a growth plan for the next five years.This includes investment in Bihar and Odisha.

“We are planning Rs 35,000-crore investments to take our group turnover from Rs 9,000 crore to Rs 25,000 crore in the next five years,” Mr Goenka told newspersons at a press conference. The group is implementing two thermal power stations in Maharashtra and West Bengal of a combined capacity of 1,200 MW. Also on the cards are super-critical projects in Orissa and Bihar.

“The road map for the just-born RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group is very aggressive growth in power with plans to increase generating capacities six times,” he told his 16,000 employees across the country through a Webcast.

While Rs 30,000 crore or 85 per cent of the total will be directed towards power projects, the group has earmarked Rs 2,500 crore for expanding the carbon black business in and outside India. While the bulk of it will be spent in adding capacities in the country, the company is setting up a 110,000 tonne plant in Vietnam, slated to be operational in 2013.

“We are also exploring opportunities to expand in other geographies, may be outside Asia,” he told Business Line later.

Having recently picked up stake in a South African coal asset of the Sydney-based miner Resource Generation Ltd, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group is scouting for more coal assets. “We are aggressively looking at opportunities in Indonesia, South Africa and many other locations,” Mr Goenka said.

RETAIL INITIATIVES

The initial setback in the retail initiatives notwithstanding, Mr Goenka is bullish on the future of Spencer’s Retail Ltd. It may have taken some time to stabilise but Spencer’s is now clearly on a recovery path, he added.

Saregama India is also reportedly doing better and this will soon start reflecting in its results