On Thursday, it was disclosed by the Hatsun Agro Product Ltd which stands out as the largest private Dairy sector firm is going to raise Rs.30 crore through preferential issue of equity shares to a clutch of individuals.

This firm which offers Ice cream and liquid milk under the brand names Arun, Ibaco and Arokya respectively, along with  providing a  variety of Dairy products like ghee, butter, dairy whitener and milk powder is planning to add a range of ready to eat food items on its portfolio. As the firm has a strong market positioning with its flagship brands mentioned earlier like Arokya and Arun Ice Creams throughout South India it is planning to carry out experiential basis production and sale of ready to eat food items.

The company mentioned the fact that it is planning to issue shares at Rs.30 crore each to a few non promoter individuals existing in the firms subjected to the shareholder’s approval. These funds will be used for meeting working capital requirement and capital expenditure. Of this Rs.30 crore, Rs.12 crore will be coming from P Vaidyanathan, non-executive director of Hatsun, three individuals namely, Satyanarayanan, Dhanushkodi, Sankaranarayanan Dhanushkodi, and Jegamohan Aravandy, each of them are believed to be US based professionals and academics will be contributing Rs.12 crore together. The rest Rs.6 crore will be provided by VVV & Sons Edible Oils Ltd, which besides Dhanushkodis had invested Rs.4 crore together in this company back in 2009. Yet these four investors are estimated to be picking up just under 1% stake in that firm with this preferential allotment.

Of late, West Bridge which is known to be a Public markets had centered that the PE firm had picked 1.23 % stake in the Chennai listed firm Hatsun Agro for an estimated Rs. 35-40 crore which remained to be completed in another deal in connection with the simmering milk and milk based products space.

Although Hatsun had eventually closed the last financial year with the revenues amounting to Rs.2493.54 Crore up around 15 % over FY13 despite  its net profit almost doubled in that same period to Rs.89.69.

It has been found that Hatsun Agro which had acquired the manufacturer of Dairy Products Jyothi Dairy for an undisclosed amount earlier is showing hectic activity phenomenally both from mergers and acquisitions and PE funding perspective.

In the meeting which was held at 31st October, 2014, the Board of Directors of Hatsun Agro Product Ltd had approved the Private Placement Offer Letter to send to the selected persons which are belonging to the Non-promoter Group on the approval of the shareholders of the company.

It was done by passing a special resolution through a Postal Ballot on the 28th October, 2014 for the issue and the allotment of 10,00,000 equity shares having face value of Re.1/-, each at Rs.300/- per share including a premium of Rs.299/- per share, on the preferential basis for a total consideration of Rs.30 Crores. Recently, it has been reported that the board of Directors of Hatsun Agro Product Ltd had approved the declaration of Interim Dividend of Re.0.60/- which is mathematically equal to be 60% per equity share for the financial year 2014-15 at their meeting which held at January 24, 2015.

This board approved the resignation of Mr. S .Subramanian as the Chief Financial Officer of that Company, who was relieved at the end of close of the business hours of 10th February, 2015.  In Combination the Board approved the appointment of Mr. H. Ramachandran as the Chief Financial Officer of that company w.e.f February 11, 2015.

According to the latest statistical data, the shares of the company were at last trading at Rs.336.4 as compared to Rs. 337.9 in BSE. As such the total number of shares that traded eventually that day was found to be33527 in over 2083 trades. The stock hit an intraday high and an intraday low of Rs.358.9 and Rs.317 respectively. The net turnover during that day was cited as Rs.11361734.

It has been a matter for us to think that the Dairy Industry in India is showing a lot of activity in these last few months. The Orissa based Milk Mantra had raised a sum of $ 13 million in Series C led by Fidelity Growth Partners with participation of the existing social venture investor Aavishkaar.

Additionally, the Sequoi Capital is close in investing $ 25 million for a minority ownership of Milk Mist Dairy Foods Pvt Ltd as reported by the media. Individually, the Dairy sector had been attractive to the PE players in the last 3 to 4 years.

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