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Citing instances of the Indal Chairman, Mr Kumar Mangalam Birla, not attending the company's AGMs since the controlling stake of the company was bought in 1999-2002 they felt that Mr Birla could be planning a merger of Indal with Hindalco.

KOLKATA, July 9

AT Indian Aluminium Company Ltd's AGM held here today, a section of minority shareholders of the A.V. Birla group company raised doubts about the future of the company's independent corporate identity.

They harboured the suspicion that Indal would be merged with Hindalco Industries Ltd (Hindalco), another A.V. Birla group company, which controls 74.62 per cent equity in Indal.

Citing instances of the Indal Chairman, Mr Kumar Mangalam Birla, not attending the company's AGMs since the controlling stake of the company was bought in 1999-2002 from the Montreal-based Alcan Aluminium Company (Alcan) by the A.V. Birla group, they felt that Mr Birla could be planning a merger of Indal with Hindalco.

With the exception of this point, the 64th AGM of the company was a tame affair. Though Mr A.K. Agarwala, Vice-Chairman of the company, who presided over the meeting in the absence of Mr Birla, allowed minority shareholders to speak freely, he took only a few minutes to wrap up the proceedings without answering any "specific" questions of the shareholders. In fact, Mr Agarwala asked the company's President and CEO, Dr S.K.Tamotia, to respond to some of the questions raised by shareholders.

In his written speech, which was read out by Mr Agarwala, Mr Birla said that the ties between Indal and Hindalco continued to strengthen, dictated by the collective desire to enhance shareholder value and customer focus. Besides a conscious increase in alumina tolling volumes, energy had been focused on bolstering Indal's presence in the profitable segments of the downstream markets, particularly sheet and foil. Mr Birla announced that the Hindalco-Indal combine enjoyed a leadership position in this segment, having generated a very significant market share.

Mr Birla said that the outlook for aluminium in the country was positive following the ongoing thrust by the government in the infrastructure and power sectors and the increasing use of aluminium as an eco-friendly metal in the white goods category. This apart, heightened activity in the automobile and consumer durable segments was expected to spur demand for the metal.

He said that the company's smelter capacity at Hirakud would be doubled from 30,000 tonnes to 57,000 tonnes per annum through the shifting of pots that were lying idle at the company's smelter in Belgaum. He expected that the pots would be commissioned in a phased manner by the last quarter of the current financial year.

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