Gillanders Arbuthnot & Company Ltd is a 92-year-old Indian conglomerate that grows tea, builds steel plants, spins yarn, and rents out a landmark Kolkata office building - four unrelated businesses under one roof. It was founded in 1935 and is now a flagship of the Kothari Group, with a structure that reaches from tea estates in Assam to a macadamia-and-tea operation in Malawi through a Mauritius subsidiary. The recurring approach is simple: run each division as a standalone unit with its own leadership, cut loose what drags, and use the cash generated by mature engines to keep the whole ship steady while placing small bets on new directions like coffee and rice exports. # Business segments Four engines with little in common except a shared balance sheet - a tea business that out-earns its peers on quality, an engineering division riding India's steel expansion, a textile mill fighting for relevance, and a single-building property unit that collects rent. ## 1. Tea: the group's quality-led cash engine **The company grows and manufactures tea on its own estates, sells it at a premium to the North Indian auction average, and is quietly adding coffee, rice and solar power to the mix.** - **Owns the bush, not just the brand** - the division operates tea estates and six factories in India, all certified under ISO 22000:2018 and Trustea standards, so it controls quality from plucking to packing. - **Quality cushions price drops** - when North India auction prices fell by Rs. 22 per kg, the company's teas declined by only Rs. 13 per kg because its focus on premium teas attracts steadier demand. In the prior year, its average price rose by Rs. 56 per kg against an industry increase of Rs. 41 per kg. - **Mechanising against a labour exodus** - workers are migrating away from estates, so the division is deploying tractor-mounted sprayers, scissor plucking and energy-efficient machinery to keep productivity up with fewer hands. - **A 401 kWp solar plant is under construction** at Arun Tea Estate, cutting energy costs and adding a sustainability credential that matters to export buyers. - **Diversifying beyond the leaf** - the division is exploring coffee and rice exports, and through its Malawi step-down subsidiary (Naming'omba Tea Estates) it already grows and processes macadamia nuts alongside tea, producing 2.15 million kgs of macadamia in FY26. ## 2. Engineering (MICCO): the steel-sector EPC specialist **It designs, supplies and erects steel plants and structures on a turnkey basis for India's largest steelmakers, and has just brought fabrication in-house.** - **Turnkey from drawing to commissioning** - the division handles the full chain: designing, supplying, erecting and commissioning steel structural projects, with revenue booked on a percentage-of-completion basis as work progresses. - **A client list that reads like the steel industry's who's-who** - Reliance Industries, JSW, Tata Steel, ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel, Vedanta, Adani Group, SAIL and Jindal are all named as customers, which means repeat work from companies in a capital-expenditure cycle. - **Brought fabrication in-house** - a new 300-tonne-per-annum manufacturing workshop began commercial production in September 2025, so the division now makes its own steel structures instead of buying them all from third parties, strengthening its EPC margins and delivery control. - **Order book tied to national steel expansion** - the division is positioned to benefit from ongoing capacity additions across public and private steel players, and it won new project orders worth Rs. 7,393 lakhs in FY22 alone. - **Payment is milestone-linked** - contracts are structured with job advances, progressive payments and milestone payments, which helps manage working capital on long-duration project sites. ## 3. Textile: the synthetic-and-blend yarn mill under pressure **It spins cotton, acrylic, polyester, viscose and blended yarns, but weak demand and volatile raw-material costs have pushed it toward value-added products to survive.** - **A multi-fibre spinner** - the division makes yarn from cotton and man-made fibres including acrylic, polyester and viscose, giving it some flexibility to shift the blend when one raw material spikes. - **Crude oil dictates input costs** - synthetic fibre prices are linked directly to crude oil, so the West Asia crisis and US tariff ripple effects have squeezed the division, with yarn makers able to pass on only part of the cost increases. - **Switched to cotton-rich blends when cotton doubled** - in FY22, raw cotton prices rose more than 100%, so the mill converted maximum possible production into cotton-rich blends to protect profitability. - **Bangladesh's crisis is a mixed bag** - political turmoil in Bangladesh, a major garment exporter, created domestic demand for Indian cotton yarn as global buyers looked for alternate sourcing, but it also reduced export of yarn to Bangladesh itself. - **Planning a move up the value chain** - facing persistent poor demand for commodity spun yarn, the division is planning to start manufacturing value-added products to improve its working. ## 4. Property: a single landmark building that collects rent **The division owns and leases out Gillander House in Kolkata, a heritage property whose location advantage keeps it occupied when newer buildings stand empty.** - **One asset, one job** - the division's revenue comes almost entirely from renting out Gillander House, the company's registered office on Netaji Subhas Road in Kolkata. - **Location is the moat** - even as newly constructed buildings with modern amenities struggled to find tenants after COVID, Gillander House stayed relevant because of where it sits. - **Rental income is smoothed** - lease rental is recognised on a straight-line basis over the lease term, so short-term occupancy fluctuations do not distort the division's reported earnings. - **Fire safety is taken seriously** - the division runs regular fire drills and follows a strict safety protocol, which matters for a multi-tenanted heritage building. # Group structure and partners **A Mauritius holding company and a Malawi tea-and-macadamia estate sit beneath the Indian parent, with the subsidiary structure serving as the group's international arm.** - **Gillanders Holdings (Mauritius) Limited** is the wholly owned direct foreign subsidiary, but it undertakes no significant operational activities of its own - it exists to hold the Malawi asset. - **Naming'omba Tea Estates Limited (NTEL) in Malawi** is the operating step-down subsidiary, growing and processing tea (1.71 million kgs in FY26) and macadamia (2.15 million kgs in FY26), and it generated EBITDA of Rs. 1,127.08 Lakhs in FY26. - **The parent has steadily funded the Mauritius vehicle** - investments include USD 50,000 in FY26, USD 8,00,000 in FY25, and USD 36,00,000 in FY21, building the equity base that supports the African operations. - **A legacy counter-guarantee remains on the books** - the company provided a counter-guarantee to a bank for a standby letter of credit against a loan taken by the Mauritius subsidiary, with USD 5.09 million outstanding under that loan as of March 2020.