Rallis India buys majority stake in seed company Metahelix for Rs99.5 crore

Rallis India Ltd, a subsidiary of Tata Chemicals and one of India's leading agrochemical companies, today announced its acquisition a majority stake in Bangalore-based seeds research company Metahelix Life Sciences, for Rs99.5 crore in cash.

Making its first inorganic foray into seeds, Mumbai-based Rallis acquired a 53 per cent stake, and will subscribe to an additional equity of Rs25 crore to increase its stake in Metahelix to 59.02 per cent on a fully diluted basis.

"Having a strategic connect to agriculture, seeds will provide a value-creating proposition for future growth at Rallis," Rallis said in a statement.
 
It said, "Metahelix Life Sciences is the company's first inorganic foray in the seeds space, providing a strong platform in the entire value chain that comprises breeding, production and marketing of seeds."

The company said that it will eventually acquire whole of Metahelix over a period of 5 years.

"We believe that revenues from the entity will exceed Rs1,000 crore cumulatively over a 5-year period. The deal works out to twice the projected revenues of next year," said V Shankar, managing director of Rallis India.

Metahelix is an emerging Ag-Biotech company focusing on developing technologies for crop improvement, mainly through trait development, utilising plant genomics and informatics and improving genetics by developing hybrid seeds.