Nalco plans subsidiaries to boost business diversification

BHUBANESWAR - State-run National Aluminium Company (NALCO) plans to form three subsidiaries to boost its business diversification aims, a senior company official said Friday.

The subsidiaries may be formed depending upon the progress of the various projects such as metals and power generation the company has planned, Finance Director B.L. Bagra told IANS.

“This may happen earliest within two years or can take five years,” he said.

The new subsidiaries will be named Nalco Metal to deal with metals and mines business other than aluminium, Nalco Power to deal with power projects and Nalco International for its foreign projects, he said.

“Our core business is aluminium business which we want to retain as it is. All the growth oriented investments… in other metals or power or in foreign countries, we want to make through subsidiaries,” he said.

NALCO, headquartered in the Orissa capital, is Asia’s largest integrated aluminium producer.

It is also a major player in bauxite mining, alumina refining and smelting with additional business interests in power generation and rail and port operations.

It has signed a deal last year with Nuclear Power Corporation of India to invest in a nuclear power project. It has also planned to invest abroad including in Indonesia and Iran.

Bagra said Nalco is not going to split at all. “The aluminium company will remain as holding company and only subsidiaries would be formed as an investment vehicle,” he added.

Nalco has planned to built a Rs.80-billion (Rs.8,000-crore/$1.6-billion) 310,000-tonne smelter and a power plant in Iran. It has currently approached several banks for funding of about $1 billion required for this project.

It has also planned to build an aluminium manufacturing project in Indonesia. Construction of the plant, conceived to produce 500,000 tonnes of aluminium using about 250 MW each from five power plants each, was expected to commence this year.