Aether Industries Limited has inaugurated their newly expanded R&D centre in Surat, Gujarat. The centre will help serve the growing demand in the CRAMS business segments and underpin efforts to achieve improved efficiency for existing products. The inauguration was done by Padma Vibhushan Professor Man Mohan Sharma. In addition to that, Aether Industries’ latest R&D centre will support innovation for the company’s continually-growing internal product pipeline to support its Large Scale Manufacturing business model. The new R&D centre is also accompanied by the world’s largest pilot plant with more than 100 reactors and plenty of other necessary downstream equipment.

The centre will house seven synthetic labs with 55 German-made fume hoods: this setup will allow the Company to conduct 110 reactions daily. Each of the fume hoods, conducive to the achievement of the highest levels of safety, features automation to control several experiment-related parameters. A specialised quality control and assurance lab is also available at the R&D centre.

The pilot plant, also includes the DCS automation system, which enables the Company to test products at varying scales, starting from a few grams to several kilograms to several MTs, using various advanced technologies, such as continuous reactions and high pressure reactions.

Talking about the new R&D centre, Dr. Aman Desai, Promoter and Whole Time Director, Aether Industries Limited, said, “We are delighted to announce the opening of our newly expanded R&D centre, which is tripled from the existing R&D facility we had as on March 31, 2022. With the establishment of this centre, we will be able to further enhance our capabilities to develop products and chemistries for niche markets. We expect the labs at this centre to consistently operate at full-capacity, resulting in an increase in revenue and a boost for the bottom line since the CRAMS business segments have high EBITDA margins.”

The company has invested INR 330 million (approximately) to revamp and grow the size of the R&D centre by 3x to facilitate the business’ expansion into new markets by way of new and innovative products and processes for international projects.

The employee count has also grown at the R&D centre, increasing from 164 employees in March 2022 to 193 as of 30 September, 2022. The company expects to employ at least 225 individuals at the centre by the end of FY23, creating jobs in south Gujarat for talented individuals in the chemical and technology industries as well as a variety of other industries. This will also lead to more manufacturing facilities (CAPEX), which is also planned by the Company, leading to even more employment generation.

Surat-based Aether Industries Limited (“Company”), a speciality chemical manufacturer in India focused on producing advanced intermediates and speciality chemicals involving complex and differentiated chemistry and technology core competencies, listed on the NSE at Rs 704 at 9.66% premium over its issue price. The scrip got listed at BSE at Rs 706.15 per share, 9.99% per cent premium over its issue price of Rs 642. The company’s share price closed at Rs 776.75 per share on the BSE, a 20.99% premium, and at Rs 774.40 per share on the NSE, an 20.62% premium.

As per NSE, the total quantity traded stood at 39.32 lakh shares, on BSE the total Quantity stood at 5.71 lakh shares. Total Turnover (BSE+NSE) on Day 1 stood at Rs 332.94 crore.

The Market Capitalization of the Company post today’s closing price stood at Rs. 9669.19 Crore as per BSE and Rs. 9639.94 Crore as per NSE.

The initial share sale with a face value of Rs 10 per equity share, consists of a fresh issue of equity shares aggregating to ₹ 627 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of up to 2,820,000 equity shares and the issue was closed on 26th May 2022. Qualified institutional buyer portion was subscribed 17.57 times. The reserved portion of non-institutional investors witnessed a subscription of 2.52 times. Retail and Employee was subscribed 1.14 times and 1.06 times respectively. Overall the issue was subscribed 6.26 times.

HDFC Bank Limited and Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Limited are the book running lead manager to the issue and Link Intime India Private Limited is the registrar to the offer.