Calcutta: Exide Industries will step up investment in 2018-19 as it looks to add capacity in Bengal and foray into lithium ion battery next year.

The battery major plans to invest Rs 1,100 crore this fiscal against a capital expenditure of Rs 750 crore in 2017-18.

The bulk of the new investment will go into Haldia where the company has acquired 20 acres of land from Calcutta Port Trust and another 20 acres from Haldia Development Authority.

"One is for organic expansion of our existing capacity and on the other land we are setting up a battery recycling plant. We have two recycling plants in Bangalore and Pune," said Exide Industries managing director and CEO G. Chatterjee on the sidelines of the company's annual general meeting on Thursday.

"A recycling plant there (Haldia) can cater to both Shyamnagar and Haldia units. Bulk of our new investment is in Haldia," he added.

Lead and lead alloys constitute 70 per cent of the total material consumption in battery manufacturing by value and the company imports around 30 per cent of its lead requirement. Additional recycling capacity could boost the use of recycled lead.

Chatterjee said the company hopes to start supply of lithium ion batteries from the second quarter of 2019.

Swiss pact

Exide has signed a pact with Swiss firm Leclanché SA to form a joint venture to build lithium ion batteries and provide storage systems for electric vehicles and grid-based applications.

As part of the joint venture agreement, Leclanche will provide access to its know-how and intellectual property for lithium ion cells, modules and battery management systems and Exide will leverage its sales network and brand.

The joint venture's manufacturing unit will be based in Gujarat where the company has picked up the assets of Tudor India after the settlement of a trademark dispute with American firm Exide Technologies.

Chatterjee, however, said that even as the company had forayed into lithium ion battery, there was no "immediate threat" to its core product -lead acid batteries.

The life insurance arm of Exide has seen a deterioration in profits in 2017-18 to Rs 60.2 crore against Rs 112.51 crore during the previous year. The wholly owned subsidiary has an embedded value of Rs 2,137 crore.

Exide has also entered into a technical licence agreement with US firm Advanced Battery Concepts to acquire knowhow and technology in the field of bipolar lead acid storage batteries. This will further decrease lead consumption.