Berger Paints to make construction chemicals

Kolkata, Feb 15: 

Berger paints India Ltd on Wednesday announced its entry into construction chemicals with five products.

It has set up two separate facilities at its paints units at Rishra, near here, and at Pondicherry at a cost of around Rs 10 crore.

Soft launch

The company has begun marketing the new products in Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka.

After a soft launch and stabilisation of distribution through its paints dealer network, it would go in for a nation-wide campaign.

Turnover

Berger expected to record Rs 35 crore construction chemicals retail turnover in financial year 2013, Mr Subir Bose, Managing Director of the company, said.

“We should be happy if we can register a turnover of Rs 100 crore in the first three years”, he added.

The market size of construction chemicals in the country is around Rs 2,000 crore, largely served by small and tiny units.

Four top existing players have a combined market share of 10 per cent, said Mr Avijit Roy, Chief Executive Officer of the company.

Retail segment

“But they operate mainly in the industrial project space. We would not immediately enter this area, but stick to retail segment.

The five Berger construction products include ready mixed polymer modified cement-based adhesive for tiles and a paste/powder for filling the cracks.

jayanta_mallick@thehindu.co.in

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Berger Paints to make construction chemicals