How Manjushree morphed into a packaging giant

The journey of Manjushree Technopack (MTL) from owning flour mills in Tinsukia, Assam, to becoming a dominant force in India's rigid plastic packaging industry caps a remarkable story of adaptation, innovation and strategic vision.

- SHINE JACOB

Last week, US private equity firm Advent International signed a deal to sell MTL to Hong Kong-based PAG for nearly $1 billion. Currently, Advent holds a 97 per cent stake in Manjushree, while the remaining 3 per cent is held by other public shareholders. This was PAG's biggest transaction in India till date, underscoring the company's growth potential in the country's booming packaging industry, which is expanding at an impressive rate of 7 per cent annually.

To understand MTL's stellar rise, one needs to go back to 1977, when owner Vimal Kedia's family-run flour mills in Tinsukia was sold off to pay off creditors. Three years later, he set up an umbrella manufacturing unit in Guwahati that did brisk business. It would soon go on to become one of the top three players in the Northeast.

A visit to a Tata Tea garden in the region sowed the seeds for the plastic packaging business in Kedia's mind.