LOTUS CHOCOLATE. Share price

Lotus Chocolate Company Limited (LCCL) is an existingcompany engaged in processing of Cocoa beans and producingcocoa derivatives and chocolates. The Company wasincorporated in 1988 as a public limited company. TheCompany entered the capital market on 23rd October 1991with a Public Issue of 2200000 Equity Shares of Rs. 10/-each for cash at par aggregating Rs.22000000/- whichclosed for subscription on 26th October 1991. The company commenced production in March 1992 with alicensed capacity of 3000 tonnes of chocolate production.At present the industry is delicensed. Subsequently acocoa plant was commissioned with an installed capacity of800 kgs/hr beans processing and commercial productioncommenced in October 1993. The main plant and machinery was imported. The beanprocessing line was supplied by Nagema Germany FilterPress by Schule Germany Conche for Chocolates by Low andDuff UK Packing system by Eurosicma Italy and NagemaGermany and Finishing lines for chocolates by NielsenDenmark. As mentioned earlier the chocolate plant commencedproduction in March 92 and Cocoa plant commenced productionin Oct 1993. The plant was operating at a low capacitymainly due to problems in introducing the products in themarket as the marketing arrangement originally envisagedwith Britannia Industries Limited did not materialise. In order to successfully compete in the market the companysought a strategic alliance with an established player inthe market. In line with this strategy the company offeredcontrolling interest to Sunshine Allied Investments Limited(SAIL) Singapore an investment company of the GrandCentral Investment Holdings Group of U.K. in July 1993.Grand Central group is a chocolate and confectionerymanufacturing and distributing group with operations inEurope Asia and Australia. It has been in the chocolateand confectionery business for over 3 decades.