Atul Ltd. of the Lalbhai Group, headquartered in Atul, Gujarat, is one of the oldest business houses of India, with interests mainly in textiles and chemicals. Incorporated in 1947, Atul Ltd. (formerly Atul Products Ltd.) was founded by Kasturbhai Lalbhai with a dream to make India self-reliant in chemicals and generate employment on a large-scale. It was the first private sector company in the country to be inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India. The company’s manufacturing plants are located at Ankleshwar in Gujarat and Atul, near Valsad in Gujarat. Atul also has offices in the US, the UK, Germany, China and Vietnam to service its international customers.
In order to expand the company’s product portfolio, its quality and capacity, Atul entered into three joint ventures, with American Cyanamid Corp. (1952), Imperial Chemical Industries plc (1955) and with Ciba-Geigy Ltd. (1960) to form Cyanamid India Ltd., Atic Industries Ltd. and Cibatul Ltd. respectively. Subsequently Atic Industries and Cibatul Ltd. were merged with Atul in 1995 and in 1998 respectively, due to the worldwide divestment of dye and polymer business. The company operates and develops through its six business divisions, namely, agrochemicals, aromatics, bulk chemicals and intermediates, colours, pharmaceuticals and intermediates, and polymers.
Each of its businesses has dedicated technology and manufacturing departments which share the responsibility of meeting the agreed volume and efficiency on the one hand and achieving improvements in unit operations and unit processes on the other. The combined employee strength in these two departments is 1,615. In 2012-13, the unit worked with 158 key initiatives.
The output in volume terms was higher by three per cent. It decreased gaseous, liquid and solid pollutants in 12 products, increased yields of 27 products, increased recovery of solvents in 36 products, decreased utilities in 30 products, enhanced people productivity through automation and mechanisation in five sections, decreased time cycle in 26 products, increased batch size in 15 products and debottlenecked capacity in 35 products. These initiatives have helped the company to focus on efficiency, sustainability and growth, with the resultant impact on the performance of the company.
The colours division is the largest business division of Atul Ltd., manufacturing a wide range of dyestuffs for the textile, leather, paper, wool and silk industries. The division is the largest supplier of dyestuffs in India and exports nearly 40 per cent of its production to more than 40 countries worldwide.
The division’s manufacturing operations started with sulphur dyes in 1952. In quick succession, the other classes of dyes – direct, acid, azoic and azo disperse – were added to the product range. Vat, reactive and anthraquinone disperse dyes were manufactured by Atic Industries Ltd., a 50:50 joint venture between Atul Ltd. and Zeneca plc (formerly a part of Imperial Chemical Industries plc). With state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities, stringent quality control systems and an efficient pool of skill-sets, the division is in the forefront of exploiting market opportunities and providing optimum solutions to its customers.
The company implemented its expansion projects with an investment of Rs. 73 crores. As many as 14 projects with an investment of Rs. 18 crores are under execution. The company undertook implementation of 25 projects with an investment of Rs. 71 crores to enhance its environment protection performance.
The net sales of the company products in 2012-13, increased by 12 per cent, from Rs. 1,746 crores to Rs. 1,964 crores. In India, its sales increased by five per cent to Rs. 986 crores, and in the export market it increased by 21 per cent to Rs. 977 crores. Profit before tax increased by 57 per cent, from Rs. 122 crores to Rs. 192 crores.
With a few projects of the company executed during the year and a few now under execution, along with some projects of debottlenecking, it targets to achieve a sale of Rs. 3,000 crores by 2015-16. Fifteen new projects have been identified, of which nine are for expansion of the existing products and six for new but related products with higher contribution margins and good potential for future growth.
• Production facilities in India (Ankleshwar and Valsad in Gujarat, and Tarapur in Maharashtra)
• Subsidiary company with production facility in the UK (Bristol)
• JV companies with production facilities in India (Valsad and Jodhpur in Rajasthan), Germany (Düsseldorf), South Korea (Ulsan) and Switzerland (Lugano)
• Distribution network for brand sales across India
• Wholly-owned subsidiary companies in Brazil (Sao Paulo), China (Shanghai), the UK (Wilmslow) and the US (Charlotte, North Carolina)
• Manufactures about 850 products divided into life science chemicals (90) and performance and other chemicals (760)
• Serves about 4,000 customers worldwide
• Owns 65 brands in crop protection and polymers