- Garnet International is a 42-year-old listed Indian holding company that was born as a capital-markets investor and is now using that same patient-money playbook to buy into two unrelated real-economy businesses - construction chemicals and garment manufacturing. Originally a pure NBFC (Non-Bank Finance Company) that lived off dividends, interest and share-trading gains, it has spent the last few years transforming into a diversified owner of operating companies, funding each new venture through internal accruals rather than bank debt. The recurring pattern is simple: the group acquires a controlling or significant minority stake, leaves the operating entity to run its own factory or distribution network, and uses the parent balance-sheet to supply unsecured loans when needed.
Business segments
Three engines at different stages - a legacy investment book that still generates the bulk of reported revenue, a construction-materials distribution platform built through an 81% acquisition, and a garment-manufacturing associate that has been steadily diluted from subsidiary to minority stake.
1. The investment portfolio: the group’s original cash engine
A pool of unquoted company stakes and unsecured loans that throws off dividends, interest and occasional trading gains - no manufacturing, no deposits, no bank borrowings.
- Long-term bets on private companies - the company holds unquoted equity across seven entities, including its own subsidiary Whitewall India, its associate Sukartik Clothing, and five unrelated firms such as Kuntunath Merchants and Shree Narayan Silk House, with a combined book value of roughly Rs. 12.3 crore as of March 2025. These are not mark-to-market plays; they are strategic holdings meant to compound over years.
- Lender to its own ecosystem - alongside the equity stakes sits a loan book of about Rs. 10.2 crore, all unsecured and repayable on demand, with the largest chunks going to its subsidiary Whitewall India (Rs. 2.2 crore) and a related party, Alaukik Mines & Power (Rs. 3 crore). The company funds these loans entirely from its own cash, because it carries no bank credit facilities and pays zero finance costs.
- A trading sleeve that has shrunk to near zero - the stock-in-trade portfolio, once Rs. 32.8 lakh in FY23, was just Rs. 0.2 lakh by FY25, signalling that the group has largely stopped actively churning quoted shares and now concentrates on its unlisted holdings.
- Receivables that carry old scars - trade receivables stood at Rs. 3.5 crore in FY25, and some of those debtors are under NCLT proceedings with no provision made against them, a legacy risk that sits on the balance-sheet alongside the newer construction-materials bet.
2. Whitewall India: the construction-chemicals distribution play
An 81%-owned subsidiary that holds exclusive Indian distribution rights for European-technology Drymix Mortars - a bet on the shift from site-mixed cement to factory-made tile adhesives and plasters.
- Sole distributor for a European process - Whitewall India is the exclusive distributor of polymerised Drymix Mortars manufactured by Mars Universal Private Limited, using technology described as the most advanced of its kind globally. It does not own the factory; it controls the customer relationship and the brand.
- Tile adhesive is the beachhead product - the company sells a tile adhesive with a pull-off adhesion strength of 3.20 Mpa, certified as Type 2 after laboratory testing, and is producing 8,000 tonnes of it alongside 11,000 tonnes of ready-mix plaster under its own brand. The Indian tile-adhesive market is expanding fast, and Whitewall is positioning itself as an early scaled entrant.
- Acquired, not built from scratch - Garnet bought its 81% stake effective February 2024 in an all-cash deal at a negotiated pre-money valuation, gaining immediate access to a business that had already clocked Rs. 4.4 crore in turnover in FY23, up from Rs. 1.8 crore two years earlier. By FY25, Whitewall’s turnover had grown further to Rs. 5.5 crore.
- Fresh capital earmarked for scale - of the Rs. 35.4 crore raised through the FY25 warrant issue, up to Rs. 10 crore has been set aside specifically for investment in or lending to Whitewall India to develop existing and new business lines. The parent is using its listed-company fund-raising ability to fuel a subsidiary that could not raise that capital on its own.
3. Sukartik Clothing: the garment-manufacturing associate
A once-controlled garment factory in Ludhiana that is now a 43% associate - still producing, but no longer consolidated, and steadily diluted by the promoters.
- From subsidiary to minority stake in two steps - Garnet held a 70.1% controlling interest in Sukartik Clothing through FY21, operating it as the group’s textile segment with garment sales and job-work dyeing. A preferential allotment by Sukartik to its promoters in February 2024 diluted Garnet to 47.3%, and a second allotment by FY25 pushed it further down to 43.1%, at which point it became an associate accounted for under the equity method.
- A factory that has taken hits - the Ludhiana plant lost two to three months of production during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and in June 2023 a fire at the factory destroyed raw materials and finished goods, though the manufacturing facility itself was undamaged and the stock was insured. These disruptions explain why the textile segment stopped being separately reported after FY23.
- Still an investment, not a disposal - despite the dilution, Garnet’s stake in Sukartik is carried at Rs. 5.4 crore on its books, making it the single largest unquoted equity position in the portfolio. The company has chosen to remain invested rather than exit, even as control has slipped away.
Group structure and partners
A family-promoted holding company with one subsidiary, one associate, and a fund-raising model built on periodic warrant issues to a mix of promoter-group and external investors.
- Two operating legs beneath the listed parent - the subsidiary Whitewall India (81% owned) distributes construction chemicals; the associate Sukartik Clothing (43.06% owned) manufactures garments. Both sit underneath a parent that itself has no manufacturing operations and reports as a single-segment NBFC.
- Promoter family at the centre - the board is led by three executive directors from the Gaggar family - Suresh Gaggar (Chairman, 39 years in capital markets), Ramakant Gaggar (Managing Director, 28 years), and Navratan Gaggar (Director) - with Kartik Gaggar and Indira Gaggar also appearing as promoter shareholders and, in Indira’s case, as a lender to the company.
- Warrants, not debt, fund the expansion - the company raised Rs. 35.4 crore in FY25 through a preferential issue of 27 lakh convertible warrants at Rs. 131 apiece to 31 allottees, including two promoter-group entities (GVS Chemical and Mangal Savitri Bizcon) and 29 non-promoters led by Choice Strategic Advisors. Only 25% of the money has been collected upfront; the remaining 75% is due when the warrants are converted into equity within 18 months.
- An earlier warrant issue brought in an overseas investor - in 2021, the company issued 15 lakh warrants at Rs. 36 each to Nexpact Limited (a vehicle whose ultimate beneficial owner was disclosed as Mr. Saleem Aziz Al Balushi) and two individual investors, showing a pattern of using warrant structures to bring in outside capital without immediate equity dilution.