Best & Crompton Engineering Ltd Company Summary

Best & Crompton Engineering (BCEL) was under Texmaco-Polysindo Group, having its operations in Electrical Contracting and manufacturing of pumps, Casting and other allied electrical items. Its works is situated in Chennai and in Bangalore.BCEL was founded in 1879 as a partnership concern and converted into a private company in 1911. In May 75, the name of the company was changed to Best & Co Pvt Ltd with subsequent change to Best & Co Ltd. In Jun.75, Crompton Engineering Company (Madras) was amalgamated with it and it acquired its present name. It was taken over by the UB Group in 1989.In April, 1998, the Madras high court discharged the company from various proceedings pending before the court and restored back the management to the new promoter, Texmaco-Polysindo Group, with constitute the board comprising of S Venkitaramanan, chairman and the directors M Arunachalam, S K Mahajan and B Viswanathan.BCEL manufactures a wide variety of engineering goods such as industrial, agricultural and special-purpose pumps, starter motors, alternators and regulators for heavy-duty commercial vehicles and passenger and service lifts. It also manufactures process carbons, ferrous, non-ferrous and special alloy steel castings, valve actuators, generators, battery charging gadgets and electrical power transmission accessories. The company made a reference to the financial/investment institutions for rehabilitation in Jul.94, since it started declining from 1991. In Sep.95, it was referred to the BIFR by the banks and financial institutions for the approval of their rehabilitation package. But the reference was disposed by the BIFR in Jan.96 on the basis of non-finalisation of accounts and audit for the period Apr.94 to Sep.95. Since its networth remains positive, it is not classified as a sick company. Its source of funds mainly come from disposal of the non-business assets of the company alongwith disinvestment in certain subsidiaries / associate companies.The company has again informed BIFR on the applicability of the provisions of the Sick Industrial Companies Act, 1985 and on implementation of a revival scheme under the supervision of the Honble High Court of Madras.During the year 1999-2000, due to the introduction of the Voluntary Retirement Scheme there was a reduction in employee cost by 17% and the company achieved an operating profit of 613.07 lakhs. The revival proposal envisaged by the company is still being pursued.