EVEREADY Industries has constituted a five-member committee to look into the sale of its tea gardens which is likely to take place in two weeks.

The company hopes to reduce interest burden by disposing of tea estates in Darjeeling and Dooars.

Eveready director R S Jhawar said here today the committee would examine these offers and zero in on the buyers soon.

Bhaskar Mitter, R Srinivasan, Pintoo Khaitan, R S Jhawar and Aditya Khaitan are the five members of the committee.

The company to this effect has convened an extra-ordinary general meeting on December 22 for relevant approvals from its shareholders.

The company said the disposal of few of its `unremunerative’ gardens would enable the company to cut losses and be able to generate surplus funds which could be used to reduce debt burden and thus save on interest costs.

“We have received a plenty of offers already but it would take sometime before we could name them. We are yet to decide on which gardens we will be selling, but we will first concentrate on the Darjeeling and Dooars gardens,” said Jhawar.

“Moreover, this will also help in strengthening and consolidation of the tea business and pave the way for acquisition of or merger with one or more profit-making tea companies."

"We hope to reduce the company’s interest burden by about 25 per cent by the combined sale of gardens and non-profitable assets. The company has already received a valuation from the brokers for its gardens,” he added.

Eveready has 25 tea estates spread over West Bengal and Assam. The committee will also examine unprofitable gardens in Assam.

(10/11/2000)

The Economic Times,

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