Vesuvius India Ltd

Vesuvius India Limited was erstwhile incorporated as 'Vesuvius Refractories Limited' in September, 1991 and was subsequently changed to Vesuvius India Limited in November, 1992. The Company was promoted by the Vesuvius Group, UK, which presently holds 55.57% stake in the Company, in association with Biswadip Gupta. The Company is primarily engaged in the manufacturing and trading of refractory goods. The Company also provides services in relation to refractory goods.

The Vesuvius Group develops innovative and customised solutions, often used in extremely demanding industrial environments, which
enable its customers to make their manufacturing processes safer, more efficient, and more sustainable. The Group has a worldwide presence, serving customers through a network of cost-efficient manufacturing plants. These include flow control solutions, advanced refractories and other consumable products and increasingly, related technical services including data capture.

The company came out with a public issue in Sep.'93 to finance the setting up of an unit to manufacture 3000 tpa of specialised refractories. Later in 1996-97 it came out with a right issue at a premium of Rs 30/- per share to the existing equity shareholders in the ratio of two equity shares for every five equity shares held.

The company installed a mixing plant for backward integration in the manufacturing process, and a second plant to expand the production capacity. These measures initiated to achieve better cost control have paid off. Initially, the company used to import the required mix from its parent, the Vesuvius Group Ltd, UK, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cookson Group Plc. This had resulted in high costs and low margins for the company. However, with facilities to produce the required mix in India, these costs have fallen.

The company acquired the assets and manufacturing rights of KSR International (India) Ltd for a consideration of Rs 21 millions. It also acquired the monolithic