Andrew Yule & Company is a government-owned industrial group whose most unusual asset is something no other state enterprise in India has - twelve tea estates across Darjeeling, Dooars and Assam, making it the only Central Public Sector Enterprise that grows and manufactures tea. Born in 1919 as a private managing agency, it lost that business and was acquired by the Government of India in 1979, eventually settling into three distinct profit centres - Tea, Power Transformers, and Industrial Fans - after permanently closing its Kolkata electrical unit in 2021 and merging its printing subsidiary. Across all three, the company returns to the same refrain: its products are "known for better quality compared to peers," and it bets on that quality to hold its ground in markets where price competition is relentless. # Business segments Three engines at different stages - a tea estate operation that is the group's largest single business, a transformer unit that became the first to cross a hundred crore in turnover, and a fan-and-retrofit engineering division that competes by replacing imported equipment - each run as a separate profit centre under one government umbrella. ## 1. Tea: the only CPSE that grows and makes tea **Twelve estates with twelve factories produce orthodox, CTC and specialty teas sold both in bulk to India's biggest packers and under the company's own retail brand - but the market is dominated by a handful of buyers who control price regardless of what it costs to grow the leaf.** - **Grown across three prime regions** - the gardens sit in Darjeeling, Dooars and Assam, with good road connectivity to auction houses and buyer networks, and all twelve hold ISO 22000, Trustea and Rainforest Alliance certifications. - **Quality is the stated edge** - the division works with the Tea Research Association on monthly research findings, has shortened the plucking cycle from seven days to six, raised fine leaf count from 38% to 44%, and uses sensor-based monitoring and botanicals to improve bush health while cutting chemical costs. - **Bulk tea pays the bills** - most revenue comes from selling bulk tea to renowned packers like Hindustan Unilever, Tata Consumer Products and Wagh Bakri, with direct exports to the UK and Poland contributing about 3% of turnover. - **Retail is tiny but growing** - the "Yule Retail" brand has just 0.2% market share by volume and has been nominal since 1990, so the company is now pushing digital marketing through an agency, selling on Amazon, and exploring more direct kiosks and channel partners. - **Costs rise faster than prices** - labour accounts for roughly 65% of costs because estate tea growers must provide housing, water, schools, subsidised food and healthcare, while wages have jumped more than 40% over five years by government order; small growers who now supply over half of India's tea bear none of these costs, and their cheaper leaf drags down prices for everyone. ## 2. Electrical-Chennai: power transformers with a zero-failure record **The Chennai plant makes power transformers from 5 MVA to 63 MVA in the 33 kV to 132 kV class, plus auto and generator transformers, and has recorded zero failures in three years - but it fights for orders in a crowded, price-driven tender market.** - **A brand built on reliability** - the unit's transformers carry a good reputation for performance, hold CPRI certification up to 132 kV class, and use in-house design software developed by the company itself. - **Price competition is intense** - the up-to-132 kV segment is crowded with small manufacturers, making it a buyers' market where winning orders with good margins is difficult, and abnormal hikes in copper, core lamination and oil prices have made old fixed-price contracts painful when customers refuse increases. - **New bets on fuel and EV charging** - the unit is exploring a retail fuel outlet on its Chennai premises and EV charging stations funded by customers who would operate them, with expressions of interest already under process. ## 3. Engineering: industrial fans and the art of import substitution **From a factory in Kalyani described as "one of the best in India," the division makes heavy-duty industrial fans and pollution-control equipment for steel, cement and power plants - and has carved out a niche by retrofitting imported fans with its own high-efficiency designs.** - **Big sheds, big lifting** - the Engineering division factory has spacious high-bay sheds with material handling up to 45 tonnes and automatic and semi-automatic production equipment, giving it an in-house manufacturing capacity valued at Rs. 70 crore working a single shift. - **Retrofitting is the differentiator** - the in-house R&D cell specialises in replacing imported fan rotors and impellers with AYCL-made ones, having substituted critical Sinter Waste Gas Fan Rotor assemblies for RINL, SAIL-Bhilai, Bokaro and Durgapur, and retrofitted fans at multiple cement plants to deliver energy savings. - **Exported through EPC contractors** - the division's fans have reached 14 foreign countries via contractors like Thyssen Krupp and Thermax, even though the division itself does not export directly. - **A 6% share in a fragmented market** - the fan business is dominated by numerous small manufacturers with low overheads who undercut on price, making branded aftermarket sales difficult and leaving the division with a market share of about 6%. - **Pollution control is a project play** - for air and water pollution control, the division partners with other firms and uses experienced sub-vendors for design, manufacturing and installation, having completed projects at Tata Steel and Indian Railways and taken up a Rs. 100 crore-plus APC project with SAIL-Bokaro on a nomination basis. # Group structure and partners **The Government of India holds 89.25% of the company, which has two dormant subsidiaries proposed for closure, one listed associate, and a legacy of units it has shut down or merged.** - **Government-owned and government-governed** - the President of India holds the controlling stake through the Ministry of Heavy Industries, and director appointments and performance evaluations are decided by the government under CPSE guidelines. - **Two dormant subsidiaries awaiting closure** - Yule Engineering Ltd. and Yule Electrical Ltd. have no operating activity, and a proposal to close them was submitted to the ministry in January 2023. - **Closed and merged units** - the Electrical-Kolkata operation was permanently shut in November 2021 through a voluntary retirement scheme funded from the company's own resources, and the printing subsidiary Hooghly Printing Co. Ltd. was merged into AYCL in June 2021, with its assets now held for sale.