India’s leading dry cell battery maker, Eveready Industries India Limited (EIIL) will form a Joint Venture (JV) with Indonesia based Universal Wellbeing Pte. Ltd. (UW) for manufacturing, importing and marketing of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) in India.
EIIL will hold 30% stake in the soon-to-be-formed JV while UW will hold the remaining 70% stake. EIIL announced this to the stock exchanges on January 24, 2018.
EIIL plans to make use of its pan-India battery distribution network to sell a bouquet of FMCG products in urban and rural areas. As per its FY17 Annual Report, EIIL has a 4,000+ distribution network and 42 distribution centers. EIIL’s products are available across more than 3.2mn outlets.
According to IIFL, the JV will be incorporated by end-FY18 with a total investment of Rs100cr, of which Rs30cr will be invested by EIIL and Rs 70 cr by UW. The JV will become operational by FY19 and will start contributing meaningfully to EIIL’s consolidated top-line by FY20. Initially, the JV will import products manufactured by UW and sell them in India. Eventually, manufacturing of some products will be done by the JV and will be sold in India leveraging EIIL’s distribution network.
