UP Mineral Products

Alexcon Foamcast ALEXCON FOAMCAST (formerly Rife Construction and Commercial), incorporated in December 1985 at Bombay proposes to set up an export-oriented foundry unit at Khalapur Taluka in the Raigad district of Maharashtra, with an annual capacity of 14,000 tpa for grey iron, S G iron, steel and alloy steel castings and 2,000 tpa of aluminium castings with technical and financial collaboration from Vulcan Engineering Company, USA. The company will use the Most foam technology which is superior to the conventional process. Vulcan is an acknowledged world leader in this technology. A survey conducted by a market research agency shows that the company's products will have a relative advantage in three market segments, namely automobiles, hermetically sealed compressors and electric motors. The survey projects a 25 per cent market share of iron compressors market for the company, 15 per cent of the iron electric motors segment and 20 per cent of the automobiles segment out of a total estimated consumption of 14,000 mt, 27,475 mt and 1,50,726 mt of the three segments respectively. The raw materials, namely, expanded polystyrene, sponge iron, ferrous and non-ferrous scrap, aluminium ingots, etc, are available locally. The project, expected to commence trial runs in July 1994 and commercial production by September/October 1994, is estimated to cost Rs 6,990 lakh out of which Rs 605 lakh (8.7 per cent) is to be spent on land and building, Rs 3,911 lakh (55.6 per cent) on plant and machinery, Rs 330 lakh (4.7 per cent) on technical know-how fees/expenses on foreign technicians and Rs 837 lakh (12 per cent) on preliminary and pre-operative expenses. The project is to be financed through equity share capital of Rs 3,300 lakh (existing capital of Rs 100 lakh, Rs 800 lakh to be raised through a rights issue, Rs 700 lakh to be subscribed by Vulcan and the balance to be raised in appropriate manner after appraisal of the project by financial institutions), Rs 3,670 lakh through term loans from all-India financial institutions for which an application has been made to IDBl, and capital subsidy of Rs 20 lakh. The rights issue of 80,00,000 equity shares of Rs 10 each at par (Rs 5 on application and Rs 5 on allotment) in the ratio of eight shares for every one share held opens for subscription on August 30.