Usher Agro Limited to raise up to Rs 100 crore through equity placements

Usher Agro Limited, an agro-processing company focused on basic food segment of the food processing industry has tied up finances to raise upto Rs 100 crore through various equity instruments for funding the company’s future expansion plans including the 3,00,000 ton roller wheat flour mill at Chatta in Uttar Pradesh.

Announcing this at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the company, V. K. Chaturvedi said that the company proposed to raise funds by way of a qualified institutional placement (QIP) of equity shares of Rs 75 each including those issued pursuant to conversion of convertible securities or compulsory fully convertible debentures (CFCD) under the provisions of chapter XIII-A of the SEBI (disclosure and investor protection) guidelines, 2000.

He said, ”The company is expanding its rice milling and wheat flour capacities significantly over the next few years. The aim is to be among the top players in the basic foods segment with a milling capacity of over a million tones per annum”.

“The Company is also looking to gainfully utilize the by-products such as rice-husk and rice bran by setting up biomass power plant and rice bran oil extractions units to be used for production of edible oils.”

In the rice segment, the milling capacity will increase by 200,000 lakh tones annually with an estimated outlay of Rs 45 crore by the fiscal year 2008-09.

At the same time, the wheat flour milling capacity will also up by 300,000 tones per annum. All these will lead to a turnover of over Rs 600 crore.

As a part of overall business strategy, the company aims to position itself among the top three players in the rice milling segment and the largest wheat flour milling in India in the next three years.