 |
| Piramal: Making a point |
Calcutta, Oct. 14: Piramal Enterprises will not sell part of its Gulita property at Worli in Mumbai, according to chairman Ajay G. Piramal.
“There is no such plan yet, ” Piramal said on the sidelines of an interactive session organised by the Ladies Study Group in Calcutta.
There was speculation that the company planned to partially sell off its Worli Gulita property, which it had acquired from HUL for Rs 452 crore in April.
The $1-billion Piramal Enterprises, with interests in pharmaceuticals, glass, real estate and financial services, is looking to develop several properties, mostly in Mumbai.
“We are doing a fair amount of development in property. They will now come up. Most of our property will be concentrating in the Mumbai region only,” he said.
On potential acquisitions, Piramal said, “We just finished an acquisition in the US in June. We are in pharmaceuticals and drug discovery and will continue to invest in that. We have financial services. We are in real estate and glass. Each of these businesses will grow organically and may be inorganically.”
The conglomerate’s glass business is affected by the ongoing slump in the European markets.
“Globally, if you see, the US is still doing better than the rest of the world. In Europe, we are seeing signs of a slowdown. I think we are much more in the western market. We do a lot of glass containers for the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry in Europe and we are seeing a slowdown there,” he said.
Pharma, however, has been better off.
“We are doing investments in drug discovery. Our plan is to see how we can discover a product and launch it in the global market. No Indian company has done that yet. We are trying to do that. On a global basis, we are spending Rs 400 crore on R&D,” Piramal said.
In pharma, Piramal Enterprises addresses cancer, diabetes and inflammation. About 80 per cent of its sales are from the overseas.
|
