Aiming to up brewing capacity by around 20 per cent, the UB Group of Dr Vijay Mallaya will spend Rs 1,000 Crore in a three-year span and this also includes the creation of two Greenfield breweries. Ravi Nedungadi, the Chief Financial Officer of the UB Group, informed that the company’s capital expenditure plan for the current financial year is Rs 488 Crore. He went on to add that this is just a part of a substantial capacity expansion plan which initiated in April 2006 and that it involves a total expenditure of about Rs 1,000 Crore in three years’ time.

When Ravi Nedungadi was queried from where the UB Group would raise money to meet the expansion plans, he said, ‘It is partly funded by the recently concluded rights issue of Rs 425 Crore and the balance through a combination of internal accruals and debt.’ The UB Group further declared that it wants to hike its brewing capacity to 71.50 lakh hecto litres per annum in the next two years from the present 60.25 lakh hecto litres per annum.

Speaking on how the company plans to go about it, the UB Group CFO, said that the plan is to build a greenfield unit with 60 lakh cases per annum initial capacity at Andhra Pradesh, which would be later expanded to 120 lakh cases per annum. Nedungadi added another similar unit would be set up in Karnataka with 30 lakh cases per annum initial capacity that would be hiked to 120 lakh cases. Further more, the brewing capacities of the UB Group’s units at Maharashtra, Orissa, Goa, Rajasthan, Punjab, Karnataka and West Bengal too would be increased. Apart from this, Vijay Mallya’s company is also working towards increasing the capacity of its large breweries.