Ascent Meditech To Invest Rs 100 Crore In Greenfield Gujarat Plant

Consumer health products company Ascent Meditech has planned to invest Rs 100 crore in a greenfield manufacturing plant in South Gujarat.

The plant spread over 12 acres of land is proposed to become operational in the second week of May 2020, company’s vice president (sales and marketing) Rakesh Kumar told Business Standard here on Tuesday.

After the commissioning of the plant, the manufacturing capacity of Ascent Meditech will increase by more than three times from 40,000 to 140,000 units per day. At present, Ascent operates five manufacturing units at Silvassa in the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli with installed capacity of 40,000 units a day.

“We are not only investing in augmenting our manufacturing capacity, but also integrating modern technology in our products,” he added.

The upcoming facility, to be completed in two phases, would span a million square feet, and be compliant with USFDA regulation, apart from housing its R&D and design studio as well.

Meanwhile, the company is also looking at raising money from the capital market in the next 2-3 years to fund its future expansion plans, Kumar informed.

He said the Mumbai-based company was growing fast keeping pace with the rising health and fitness awareness among the people.

The company is targetting to grow 28 per cent in the current fiscal year 2019-20 by clocking turnover of Rs 180 crore compared to Rs 140 crore last year. “We are aiming to become a Rs 500 crore company in the next three years,” Kumar added.

Earlier, private equity firm LeapFrog Investments had bought a majority stake in the company.

Nearly 25 per cent of the company’s turnover comes from exports, mainly to the West Asian countries, Africa and Europe. “We are planning to increase our shipments to other geographies as well with a new range of products, especially in Europe.”

Besides, Ascent is also increasing its retail footprint across India from the current network of 1,500 distributors, 300 super stockists and 200,000 outlets, including medical stores.

“Uttar Pradesh market contributes 8-9 per cent to our revenues and we feel there is still a lot of market potential given the large population and geography of the state,” Kumar noted.

For greater appeal, Ascent has appointed Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan as the brand ambassador for its flagship brand Flamingo and launched new range of lifestyle pain management products, such as Back Comfort Belt, Knee Cap, Thigh Support, Elbow Support and other products in different colour variants.

The domestic market that the company seeks to cater is pegged at nearly Rs 7,000 crore and growing robustly.

The company has already launched its ecommerce platform for its Flamingo brand of products. However, the ecommerce still contributes a miniscule portion of its sales out of the total portfolio of over 325 products.-Business Standard