Chairman of GHCL Sanjay Dalmia says that Dan River, the company they recently took over, is expected to see revenues of around $220 million in 2006.
He further says that he expects the restructuring of the company to be completed this year.
Excerpts from CNBC-TV18's exclusive interview with Sanjay Dalmia:
We believe that Wal-Mart has visited your plant, can you confirm that? What is the nature of orders you would be expecting from them?
Wal-Mart has always been our customer; it's not that they are placing an order from us for the first time. Dan River was a sick company last year. Now, after we have taken over it is turning around.
Now we have got orders from not only Wal-Mart but other major retail chains in America as well. I expect that next year Dan River's turnover should be around $350-400 million.
Will Dan River be able to post profits as well besides its revenue growth?
There will be profits.
One word on the orders that you are getting from these big companies like Wal-Mart, etc? What sort of orders have you been getting and how much incremental growth do you expect to see?
I can't give the individual breakup right now. But I expect to do about $220 million this calendar year, and next year we should do at least $350-400 million. This is a 50-60% increase in turnover.
By when will you take a call on demerging the textiles division, if at all, and
We are looking at restructuring the company and we have been talking about this for the last couple of weeks. I think we will be appointing an agency or an advisor who will work out the whole thing.
It is not a question of textile and soda ash in India; it is also a question of Dan River and Roseby. So we have to look at it from an overall perspective. We will be appointing someone shortly who will give advice on the matter because we want to do this restructuring fast.
Can you give us a timeline for when you can expect it to be completed roughly?
My objective is to try and do the whole restructuring within this year, latest by the end of December, unless there are some regulatory things, which need permissions, etc.
Whichever entities are formed from the demerger, will they be listed?
Yes.
Is there any likelihood of you putting your entire local and global textiles business under one roof?
Theoretically, the best solution would be to have the total textile business, in and outside India, into one, and the soda ash business, in and outside India, into one. But for that I would like to wait for the consultant to advise us and then we will take a decision. We are going to do it fast; it is not something that will take time.
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