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Parag Milk Foods To Acquire Danone’s Haryana Facility For Rs 30 Crore

The dairy major expects the acquisition strengthen the company’s footprint in north India.

Plastic bottles of Activia prune flavored yoghurt pass along a conveyor belt on the production line in the Danone dairy product manufacturing plant. (Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg)
Plastic bottles of Activia prune flavored yoghurt pass along a conveyor belt on the production line in the Danone dairy product manufacturing plant. (Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg)

Parag Milk Foods Ltd. will acquire Danone Foods and Beverages India Pvt.’s curd and yogurt manufacturing facility at Rai, Sonipat in Haryana for Rs 30 crore.

The Maharashtra-based dairy expects this acquisition to expand and strengthen the company's footprint in north India and also strengthen its fresh category distribution of milk, flavored milk, buttermilk, curd, fresh paneer and yogurt in this region, it said in a stock exchange filing today. Parag Milk Foods will complete the transaction by June.

“With this acquisition, we expect our revenues to increase by Rs 150 crore over the next two years,” Devendra Shah, chairman of Parag Milk Foods told BloombergQuint in an interview. It will also help the company strengthen its presence in North India.

In January, Danone announced that it is exiting the dairy business in the country and would shut down its factory in Haryana, as it couldn’t build a supply chain and a distribution network to take on entrenched rivals like Amul, Mother Dairy and Nestle India Ltd.

The French-dairy major said it will focus on nutrition and baby food with brands like Protinex, Farex, Nusobee, Dexolac, a segment that contributed 80 percent to its India revenues.

Shares of Parag Milk Foods gained over 4 percent to Rs 284 on the National Stock Exchange today. The stock has risen for the fourth straight session, gaining 14.5 percent this week, compared to 0.9 percent advance in the NSE Nifty 50 Index.

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Corrects an earlier version that misstated the location of Danone’s plant.