Crawford Bayley is advising Prabhat Diary while J Sagar Associate and Amarchand Mangaldas is advising Abraaj Capital and Rabo PE respectively.
Incorporated in 1998 and promoted by Sarang R Nirmal and family, Prabhat Diary is engaged in procuring, processing and distributing milk and milk products majorly in Western Maharashtra. The company has milk processing capacity of 6 lakh ltrs per day collecting from around 50,000 farmers. The company has a processing plant at Srirampur.
Recently, PE funds are showing higher interest in the dairy sector. Last week, IDFC PE invested R155 Cr in Parag Milk Foods, the maker of Gowardhan and Go brands.
Creamline and Kwality are also in the fray looking for investors to fund their expansion plans.
This April, World Bank signed agreement with GOI to provide $352 Mn for the National Diary Support Project. National Dairy Support Project is set up to increase productivity of milk animals and improve market access of milk producers in project areas.
The project will cover some 40,000 villages across 14 major dairying states and is expected to directly benefit about 1.7 million rural milk producing households.
According to National Diary Development Board, more than 70 Mn of some 147 Mn rural households depend on dairy, in varying degrees, for their livelihood. The annual milk production in the country is about 112 Mn tonnes, most of which is consumed in the country.
The demand for milk is projected to grow to at least 180 Mn tonnes by 2021-22 and for meeting this demand, production should grow at 5.5 % per annum over the next decade.
