Mumbai, May 25: The Tatas appear to have their sights trained on Himalayan, the mineral water brand owned by the Delhi-based Mount Everest Mineral Water.

The buzz among investment bankers is that a formal announcement on the buyout of this natural mineral water brand is expected in the next few weeks.

Tata Tea will probably be the vehicle through which the investment will be made.

The acquisition of Himalayan — which some three years ago emerged as the only mineral water brand untarnished by the pesticide-in-water controversy stoked by a study conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment — will help strengthen Tata Tea’s product portfolio.

Officials in the Tata group refused to comment.

At a conference call after the sale of its Glaceau stake to Coca-Cola Company for $1.2 billion, Tata Tea vice-chairman R.K. Krishna Kumar confirmed that Tata Tea had identified a few targets for acquisition but refused to confirm whether Himalayan was one of them. He said the Tatas had zeroed in on certain potential targets, particularly in the US market. He added that Tata Tea would be keen to pick up a majority stake in these companies. He said the group was not averse to buyouts in India either.

Tata Tea has, of late, started to position itself as a complete beverage company with wellness as a key area of focus.

Officials from Mount Everest Mineral Water were not available for comment.

Mount Everest Mineral Water originally belonged to Dadi Balsara who sold it to some NRI investors. Himalayan, which is graded equivalent to brands like Evian, is a major player in the bottled water segment. The USP of the brand is that it is natural unlike the other mineral water brands in India which are chemically treated.

The talk about Tatas buying into the company grew louder after the group made a killing on its Glaceau investment. An analyst said that close to $336 million could flow into the books of Tata Tea as a consequence of this sale.

Krishna Kumar said the group could use the money for various purposes. It could be used to retire a part of Tata Tetley’s $600-million debt.

“One option will be to either make Tata Tetley debt free and still have a surplus or make use of the money to fund other acquisitions,” Kumar added.