Tata Chemicals Ltd. (TCL; Mumbai, India; www.tatachemicals.com) completed the acquisition of the Silica business from Allied Silica. Earlier this year, the company had entered into a Business Transfer Agreement with Allied Silica Limited to acquire their business of precipitated silica for a consideration of up to 123 crores, on a slump sale basis. This acquisition is a part of the Rs. 295 crore investment approved by the Board during Feb 2017, towards this specialty business.
This agreement includes the acquisition of an existing manufacturing site in Tamil Nadu, which will produce Highly Dispersible Silica (HDS). The specialty chemical product represents a downstream value addition to Tata Chemicals soda ash business, where it ranks among the top manufacturers globally.
Commenting on the move, Mr. R. Mukundan, Managing Director, Tata Chemicals said, ‘In line with our strategy to grow our specialty business, we are pleased to announce the successful completion of the transaction with Allied Silica. Our immediate focus is to enhance the site’s operational readiness to maximize throughput of the existing product portfolio while meeting requisite safety and quality specifications, and we aim to upgrade the unit by the second quarter FY19. In parallel, we intend to accelerate the business development and commercial production of the specialty grades of Highly Dispersible Silica (HDS) developed by our Innovation Centre in Pune.”
Precipitated silica is a versatile product with applications in many industries, including rubber, oral care, coatings and agrochemicals. The acquisition also offers the possibility to make value-added silica in the future for applications that demand high performance.
The technology for manufacturing HDS, for which eight patents have already been filed, has been developed at the company’s Innovation Centre in Pune.