JK Paints and Coatings, thewholly-owned subsidiary of JK Cement, has entered into an agreement with AcroPaints for acquiring 60 per cent stake in the latter at an investment of `1.53-bn. This is subjectto regulatory approvals and conditions. The remaining 40 per cent stake shallbe acquired over 12 months.

Acro Paints is a zero debtcompany, situated in Bhiwadi, Alwar district in Delhi-NCR, with post expansioncapacity of 60,000KL in decorative and textured paints, and 6,700MT inconstruction chemicals. The ongoing capacity expansion is expected to becompleted by Q2FY24.

Acro’s revenues stood at `785-mn/`780-mn/`890-mn inFY20/FY21/FY22, respectively. The company targets revenue of `990-mn (+11 per cent Y-o-Y)in FY23E.

Its B2C sales stood at 89 percent in FY22. It has 50 brands in decorative paints including Textures; 40brands in construction chemicals, and >3,000 SKUs at various price-points.Acro’s promoters (Charanjeet Gaind and Ashok Gaind) will be associated with thecompany for the next one year.

Market experts believe that theacquisition will provide JK Paints an opportunity to foray into the growingvertical of construction chemicals and waterproofing products, which has acurrent market size of >`50-bn,growing at over 10 per cent p.a.