Aditya Birla Group makes $20 bn investment as it sets eyes on scaling biz: K.M. Birla

Aditya Birla Group aims to double cement business, emphasizing long-term investments and strategic growth across sectors.

Aditya Birla Group has invested about $20 billion, mainly in manufacturing space, as it looks to be among the top two players across the segments it operates in, a top company official said on Saturday (November 16, 2024).

Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, Aditya Birla Group Chairman K.M. Birla said the group firm has taken tough decisions, including the acquisition of Novelis by Hindalco, to build scale and aims to expand cement business from 100 million tonnes to 200 million tonnes over the next 10 years.

He said most of the group's investments are long-term, with a business outlook over the next 15-20 years, while consumer businesses have a shorter span.

"We have $20 billion of announced investments that are on the ground. Obviously, you look at it because a lot of them are in the manufacturing space. You would look at the next 15-20 years. Shorter than that doesn't make sense in that kind of business... If, on the other hand, you're looking at fashion retail or jewellery retail or financial services, then you are looking at a much shorter time frame," Mr. Birla said.

He noted that values, people, scale and running businesses for the long term are key strategies that define a group's way of doing business.

"We want to be number one or two in every business that we are in or get into. So, like they say, scale is in everything, but it's the only thing. Without scale, I think it's very difficult to survive today unless you have something very unique, very high technology, which gives you very high margins. So, scale is very important," Mr. Birla added.

He said the company has built 100 million tonnes of cement capacity over 36 years but will be scaling it up to 150 million tons in the next 5 years and 200 million in the next 10 years.