Fortune Scrip     

Published: May 15, 2025
Updated: May 15, 2025

Borosil Renewables

Acquisition boosts solar glass king

This time, we have picked a unique company – Borosil Renewables, the world’s leading solar glass manufacturing company and a part of the six decade-old Borosil group — as the Fortune Scrip for this fortnight. In India, the company is an undisputed market leader in its field, enjoying a 40 per cent marketshare. The company’s plant, located at Bharuch in Gujarat, is spread over 100 acres with a solar glass production and processing capacity of 1,000 tonnes per day, equivalent to 6.5 gw per annum. Recently, the company acquired Interfloat, Europe’s largest manufacturer of solar glass with a capacity of 350 tpd. With this acquisition, the company’s solar glass capacity has grown to 1,350 tpd.

Borosil has a strong focus on innovation and is known for its pioneering achievements, like the development of the world’s first fully tempered 2 mm solar glass, solar glass with the lowest iron content, the highest glass efficiency, and the first company in the world to successfully remove an extremely hazardous substance – antimony – from its solar glass. The company is known for its benchmarked low energy consumption and has maintained a 22 per cent lower carbon footprint in comparison with the default score for the glass manufacturing industry, as confirmed in a life cycle assessment study carried out by a reputed European institute. The company owns a 1.5 MW wind farm and has invested in a 10 MW hybrid renewable energy plant at Bharuch, taking the consumption of renewable power to about 30 per cent of its total electricity consumption. It won the National Award in 2021 for the successful commercialisation of indigenous technology from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

DUMPING WOES

Borosil’s financial performance has fluctuated due to countries like China, Malaysia and Viet nam dumping their products at prices which are unviable for any manufacturing company. While its sales turnover shot up from Rs 156 crore in fiscal 2014 to Rs 1,367 crore in fiscal 2024, operating profit zoomed from Rs 9 crore in fiscal 2014 to Rs 143 crore in fiscal 2023 but slumped to Rs 54 crore in fiscal 2024. Similarly, the profit at net level rose from Rs 39 crore in fiscal 2014 to Rs 71 crore in fiscal 2023 but turned into a loss of Rs 50 crore in fiscal 2024 due to dumping by China and Vietnam.

The Indian government realised the problem and imposed an anti-dumping duty from Febru ary 2025. As a result, prospects for the company going ahead are all the more promising. Hence, we have picked Borosil Renewables as the Fortune Scrip because its outlook has brightened and it is going to put up a highly encouraging show going forward. Consider:

• Following a complaint by the company, the Union Ministry of Finance notified on Decem ber 4, 2024 provisional anti-dumping duties on imports of textured, tempered, coated and un coated glass. The decision was taken after a comprehensive preliminary investigation conducted by the Directorate General of Trade Remediates (DGTR) in February 2025, which found that solar glass was being exported to India from China and Vietnam at prices below fair market value, resulting in dumping. The imposition of the anti-dumping duty will benefit BRL – the first and the largest among solar glass manufacturers in India. As a result, though BRL plunged into the red during Q2 FY2025 ending in September 2024, Indian Ratings and Research (Ind RA) revised the outlook on BRL’s sales turnover on account of enhanced capacity and the rise in demand for solar glass following the government’s initiatives for the installation of and manufacturing of domestic modules.


GREEN ENERGY

• Realising the limitations of thermal energy and its adverse impact on the environment and human life, the world has started moving towards renewable energy. The Indian government’s thrust on renewable energy – with solar getting an increasing share of resources within renewables – and plans to achieve 300 GW of solar power generation by 2030 will go a long way to benefit BRL. Not only does the company enjoy a first-mover advantage, it is the lowest-cost producer in the world. In these circumstances, the imposition of anti-dumping duties will help the company substan tially in fiscal 2026 and thereafter.
• Thanks to the imposition of the anti-dumping duty, the board of directors of Borosil Renewables has revived an ambitious plan to expand capacity by 500 tpd at a cost of around Rs 900 crore to total around 1,950 tpd (10 GW per annum). This will give a big boost to the company’s topline as well as the bottomline, going ahead.
• With expanding capacity, the company is now striving to extend its footprint overseas. It has already entered the US, Europe and Turkey. With the acquisition of Germany’s Interflow, BRL is expected to gain new customers in Europe.
• At home, the company enjoys a virtual monopoly, servicing over 400 customers. But 3-4 leading glass manufacturers are planning to enter the field shortly. However, the company is not worried too much as its first-mover advantage, long-term experience, rich technical know-how, scale, size and customer relationships will act as a huge entry barrier for others. It will not be easy for newcomers to break in, as glass production is a continuous process and requires a stable sales channel before building new capacities.

P.L.I. BOOST

• With a view to promoting high-efficiency solar PV modules and prioritising fully integrated manufacturing units for solar PV modules, the government has under its 'Make in India' initiative extended the PLI (production-linked incentive) scheme for PV modules and sanctioned a grant of Rs 19,000 crore for this scheme. Borosil Renewables will be one of the major beneficiaries of this scheme. The government's decision to include solar PV module manufacturers under PLI will give a big boost to BRL.
• The green energy stock gained further momentum after the company's promoter, Kiran Kheruka, acquired 96,000 shares of BRL, raising the promoters' stake to 61.6 per cent and signalling the promoters' confidence in the company's future growth potential.
• This gave a further boost to the scrip, as a result of which the stock price shot up to Rs 644 before settling at Rs 540 (face value Re 1). If the anti-dumping duties continue, the share price can certainly scale further high levels. Discerning investors will do well to accumulate these stocks at every decline with a long-term investment perspective.