Ceat finalising Bhandup land sale

MUMBAI: Ceat, the country’s fourth-largest tyre manufacturer, is close to finalising a land sale deal, a senior company official said on Tuesday.

Ceat has put seven of 32 acres of land at Bhandup, a suburb of Mumbai, on the block, which market watchers say can fetch over Rs100 crore.

“We are in discussions with many developers and would be freezing the deal before the end of the financial year,” P K Chowdhary, managing director, Ceat, told DNA Money. The company said the land sale will have no impact on workmen or existing factory operations.

Ceat has board approval to sell excess Bhandup land. Sources say eventually the company would fully exit Bhandup in favour of some other low-cost manufacturing destination.

It is scouting for locations to set two greenfield plants - one in Maharashtra to manufacture speciality tyres and another in Uttrakhand or Gujarat or Tamil Nadu to produce radial tyres for passenger cars and commercial vehicles.

Part of the Rs 700-800 crore investment in the two plants would be met from the proceeds from the land sale.

“Since the plot is located close to Airoli bridge which connects to Navi Mumbai to central suburbs and the newly set up Nahur railway station, it would fetch over Rs100 crore,” said a realty consultant.