JK Tyre raises $100m for PCR, TBR expansion projects

New Delhi – JK Tyre & Industries Ltd has raised $100 million (€97 million) from investor International Finance Corp. (IFC) to advance ongoing expansion projects in India.

In a 6 Jan statement, IFC said it is considering the investment which will be in the form of a sustainability-linked senior secured A loan to JK Tyre and its wholly own subsidiary Cavendish Industries Ltd (CIL).

Of the total loan proceeds, up to $30 million will be to JK Tyre, and $70 million to CIL to be used to expand existing brownfield plants and to refinance and extend the maturity of CIL's existing high-cost debt.

The brownfield expansion includes increasing production capacity for passenger car radial tires (PCR) at JK Tyres' plant in Banmore, Madhya Pradesh by 3.2 million units per year, said IFC.

The project will bring the total production capacity of the plant to 15.5 million units of PCR per annum, the statement continued.

The investment will also go towards increasing annual TBR production capacity at CIL’s manufacturing site in Laksar, Uttarakhand, by 280,000 units to a total of 2.25 million tires.

The Banmore plant, noted IFC, has land available within the existing plant premises to establish a new production line.

The Laksar facility’s expansion will occur within the existing building infrastructure.

JK Tyre acquired CIL in 2016 and last September announced that it intended to integrate CIL into all its businesses under a single listed entity.

Headquartered in New Delhi, the Indian group operates six plants operated under JK Tyre and three under CIL.

In mid-2024, JK Tyre announced a two-year plan to invest INR14 billion (€155 million) in capacity expansions (ERJ report), while in early 2023 it reported an equity investment of $30 million by IFC (ERJ report).