Century Textiles and Industries Ltd, the 127-year old company which now belongs to Aditya Birla Group, is set to have a new identity. The company disclosed in a regulatory filing that its board of directors have approved a proposal to “change the name of the company to such suitable name as may be available and approved by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs”. The memorandum of association and articles of association will be amended to give effect to the change in the name.
Century Textiles, which was founded by the Wadia family of Bombay Dyeing before it rolled into the Birla fold shortly after India’s independence, added that the change of name will be subject to the approval of its shareholders and other applicable statutory authorities as may be required.
While the textile business was at one point in time a key revenue earner for the company, which was once spearheaded by legendary Ghanashyam Das Birla, the land that housed the mill at Worli in Mumbai has been redeveloped for real estate.
For the quarter ended March 31, 2024, revenues from textiles stood flat at Rs. 12.49 cr against the corresponding quarter in the previous year, while Rs. 859.07 cr (Rs. 909.85 cr) came from pulp & paper. Revenues from real estate jumped to Rs. 92.16 cr from Rs. 36.12 cr in the year-ago period.
Century ventured into the real estate sector in 2016 under Birla Estates. While the real estate segment does not match up to the revenue from paper as of now, it perhaps holds the most promising prospect.
In an investor presentation submitted recently, Century pegged the gross development value of ongoing projects at Rs. 13,000 cr and forthcoming projects at Rs. 32,000 cr. About 60 per cent of that is going to be located in Mumbai.
Century, which was passed on to Kumar Mangalam Birla from the grandfather Basant Kumar Birla, son of G.D Birla, is not the first to monetise its age-old land holding.
The Wadia family and Godrej family have aggressively entered real estate, building initially on the legacy land holding and then expanding to new locations.
