Nectar Lifesciences MD Sanjiv Goyal (right) in Calcutta on Thursday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, June 17: Nectar Lifesciences Ltd will launch an initial public offering to raise around Rs 90 crore from the market.

The company is a manufacturer and exporter of sterile cephalosporins and sterile semisynthetic penicillin in the country.

“The proceeds of the issue will be utilised to part finance a new formulations facility at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh,” said Sanjiv Goyal, managing director.

It would also finance the expansion of its sterile cephalosporin plant at Derabassi in the Patiala district of Punjab.

Apart from this, Nectar is planning a research and development centre and a corporate quality control facility at Derabassi, Goyal added.

The initial offer constitutes 38.70 lakh shares to be issued within a price band of Rs 200 to Rs 240 per share at a face value of Rs 10 each. It will open on June 22 and close on June 28.

Goyal said the expansion would help the seven-year-old company increase its presence in the cephalosporin market, besides foraying into the non-antibiotic segment. Last year, the company had invested over Rs 70 crore for expansion.

The domestic market for cephalosporin is growing at the rate of 20 per cent, Goyal said.

Nectar had achieved a 20 per cent growth in turnover at Rs 232 crore last fiscal. Of this, exports constituted 25 per cent. The company is targeting 50 per cent of the turnover from exports this year. “We are now looking at an exports-domestic sales ratio of 50:50,” he said.

Nectar is focussing on Asia Pacific, West Asia, East Europe and Latin America.

At present, the company exports to 20 countries, including China, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Africa and certain parts of South America.

It is planning a customer contact programme apart from participating in exhibitions and getting its products registered in regulated markets for better realisations.

The company has a fully operational subsidiary, Chempharma Pvt Ltd, in Sri Lanka.