Rhetan TMT is a small Indian steel mill that has spent four decades turning billets into earthquake-resistant construction bars from a single plant in Gujarat - and it is now trying to stretch beyond that one product. Incorporated in 1984 and listed on the BSE main board in 2024, the company is run by a civil engineer whose family holding company, Ashoka Metcast, controls the majority stake. The recurring approach is to stay lean and local: one plant, one state, one product line, and a habit of adding small, adjacent bets - a captive solar plant, a trading licence - only after the core is running. # Business segments One core business that generates all the revenue, plus two early-stage bets that exist only to feed or extend it - a captive solar plant under construction and a freshly approved commodity-trading licence. ## 1. TMT bar manufacturing: the only revenue engine **A single rolling mill in Gujarat makes earthquake-resistant steel bars for domestic construction - one plant, one product family, and 100% of turnover.** - **One plant, one process** - the entire operation runs from a fully mechanised rolling mill in Kadi, Gujarat, with an installed capacity of 100-120 metric tonnes per day, recently expanded to 45,000 metric tonnes per annum. There are no other plants, no international locations, and no exports. - **Bars that bend without breaking** - the mill uses quenching and tempering technology to produce Thermo-Mechanically Treated (TMT) bars that combine high tensile strength with high elongation, so they absorb seismic shocks rather than snapping. The bars conform to Bureau of Indian Standards Grade Fe 500 and range from 8 mm to 32 mm in diameter, alongside mild steel round bars for engineering components and foundation bolts. - **Sold to builders, not to households** - customers are dealers and construction companies, and the bars end up in bridges, flyovers, dams, hydel power plants, industrial structures, high-rise buildings and rapid-transport systems. All sales stay within India, concentrated in one state. - **Competing on quality in a fragmented market** - the industry is dominated by large conglomerates but crowded with small and medium players, so the company competes on product quality, customer relationships and cost reduction rather than scale alone. Its 45 permanent employees and 48 non-permanent workers run the plant, with training programmes to keep skills current. - **Raw-material risk is the main vulnerability** - steel billet prices swing with global demand-supply gaps and shipping disruptions, so the company tracks prices closely and holds inventory to avoid buying at peaks. Its risk framework also flags economic slowdowns, rising finance charges and labour cost increases as key threats. ## 2. Captive solar generation: cutting the factory’s power bill **A 1-2 MW solar plant is being built to feed the Kadi mill directly - not to sell power, but to lower the cost of making steel bars.** - **Power for the plant, not for the grid** - the solar project is captive, meaning its entire output will supply the TMT bar factory in Kadi, reducing the company’s dependence on purchased electricity. - **State-backed from the start** - a Memorandum of Understanding signed in January 2024 with the Gujarat government’s municipal administration body promises support in obtaining permissions, registrations and clearances from relevant departments. - **Site-switching slowed the timeline** - originally planned for Aravalli district, the project moved to Village UN in Banaskantha district by December 2024 after problems with landowners at the first site, and the company announced it will now be entering into a lease deed for the new parcel of roughly 20,000 square metres. - **Grid connection is approved** - by February 2025, Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation (GETCO) had granted connectivity approval and cleared the technical feasibility report for a 1 MW (AC) / 1.25 MW (DC) installation, with the final registration from the Gujarat Energy Development Agency (GEDA) in progress. ## 3. Commodity trading licence: a permission slip for a different game **Shareholders have authorised the company to trade commodities - metals, energy, soft commodities and their derivatives - but no trading has begun yet.** - **A new object clause, not a new business** - in early 2026, the company altered its Memorandum of Association to add commodity trading as an authorised activity, covering physical and derivative dealing in everything from base metals and bullion to energy products and agricultural commodities, both in India and abroad. - **An option, not a commitment** - the approval gives the board the legal headroom to enter trading, hedging and arbitrage if it chooses, but there is no disclosed trading desk, no allocated capital and no revenue from this activity as of the latest filings. - **Acquisition scouting runs in parallel** - the board separately announced in September 2024 that it would explore strategic acquisitions in the steel industry and sign non-binding agreements to conduct due diligence on target companies, suggesting the trading licence may be part of a wider appetite for deal-making beyond the mill. # Group structure and partners **The company is controlled by a family-held promoter group through Ashoka Metcast Limited, with related-party transactions woven into its day-to-day operations.** - **Promoters sit across multiple listed entities** - Shalin A. Shah also holds stakes in Ashoka Metcast (22.18%), Lesha Industries (16.52%) and Ashnisha Industries (8.42%), and together with his father, Ashok C. Shah, who is Promoter Group and Director, owns 50% each of an entity called LVPL. - **Group companies are also customers and suppliers** - the company buys from and sells to Ashnisha Industries, Ashoka Metcast, Gujarat Natural Resources and Lesha Industries, all classified as group companies, making related-party trade a routine part of the business.