The government's recent imposition of an anti-dumping duty on solar glass imports from China and Vietnam will help Borosil Renewables Ltd. restore its margins and profits to a healthy level, according to Chairman Pradeep Kumar Kheruka.
In the fiscal 2025 budget, the government imposed a 10% import duty on solar glass effective from October 2024. Additionally, a provisional anti-dumping duty on imports of solar glass from China and Vietnam was imposed on Dec. 4, 2024, for a period of six months.
Talking to NDTV Profit, Kheruka called the government's anti-dumping duty decision a “positive move”.
“This is going to restore profitability to the company to a healthy level and this would certainly restore margins to us,” he said.
“We have so far used all the funds that we have received to reinvest into production and I presume that is our plan going forward as well,” Kheruka added.
The top executive also mentioned Borosil Renewables' plans to raise Rs 700 crore to expand its capacity for a 500 tonnes per day facility.
The facility is expected to come on stream in the third quarter of the next financial year, the chairman said. “I would expect that sometime in the October-December quarter of next year, we should be seeing glass coming out of this (facility)."
The Borosil Renewables chairman also sees a “very good future” for the solar industry.
“We see a good run to this because there's a very large demand for solar energy in the country, and there's a very large requirement for solar panels. Therefore, we expect that there should be absolutely no problem in selling the capacity as soon as we have it,” he said.
Talking about the funding of the new capacity, Kheruka mentioned that it will be done through a Rs 700-crore preferential allotment.
“We need permission from the shareholders. Once that is in place, we would request the investors to put in their money. The promoters are going to put in Rs 100 crore, and Rs 600 crore is coming in from preferential allotments. So, that's an input of about Rs 700 crore,” he explained.
The money raised from the preferential allotment will also be used for repaying certain debts of the company, Kheruka stated.
“We will use a part of that to repay the debt that we have currently and the rest of it will go towards capacity expansion,” he said.
Shares of Borosil Renewables Ltd. rose 1.37% to touch an intraday high of Rs 555 apiece on the NSE on Friday. They erased gains to close 0.08% lower at Rs 547 per share, compared to a 0.76% decline in the NSE Nifty 50.
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