NEW DELHI: FMCG-to-hotel conglomerate ITC will be investing Rs 20,000 crore over the next five years to enhance structural competitiveness and build an enterprise for the future.
About 35–40% of this will be spent on FMCG business, while 30% is planned for paperboard and packaging. The remaining will be spent on agriculture and other businesses.
“Despite the headwinds, the investments made across all our businesses to enhance structural competitiveness and build an enterprise of the future, position ITC well to leverage emerging opportunities in the market. Our confidence in the India story is unwavering and is reflected in ITC’s investment outlay of about Rs 20,000 crore in the medium term,” said ITC CMD Sanjiv Puri on Friday.
The Kolkata-headquartered company reported gross revenue of Rs 69,446 crore in FY24 and a profit of Rs 20,422 crore. For ITC, non-cigarette revenue now accounts for about 65% of net revenue.
“The revenue of the cigarettes business grew at a CAGR of nearly 13.5% over the last two years, with volumes surpassing pre-pandemic levels,” said Puri. Commenting on the hotel business which soon will be demerged and listed as a separate entity, Puri said after a period of sustained headwinds, it has emerged structurally stronger clocking revenue of nearly Rs 3,000 crore and Ebitda crossing Rs 1,000 crore in FY24.
ITC’s planned capital expenditure in the FMCG business over the next five years is expected to be in the range of Rs 7,000-8,000 crore. Puri informed that they will focus on building Integrated Consumer Goods Manufacturing and Logistics facilities (ICML) to reduce the time and distance between the factory and the market.
At present, ITC has 11 such facilities and two are under construction. The company will be looking at setting up a Greenfield plant for paperboard and packaging materials as its plant in Bhadrachalam is now fairly saturated.