Mysore Petro Chemicals is a shape-shifter - a company that has twice walked away from its own factories and reinvented itself, first as a pure petrochemical trader and then as a financial holding house with a growing investment book. Incorporated in 1969 and led for over four decades by founder-member Shri M. M. Dhanuka, it shut its Phthalic Anhydride plant in 2013 and sold its Maleic Anhydride business in 2017, exiting manufacturing entirely to become an intermediary that buys and sells chemicals without owning a single production line. The recurring pattern is a willingness to cut loose what no longer works and redeploy capital elsewhere - into a trading relationship with its former business buyer, into a portfolio of equities and debentures, and most recently into a plastic-recycling venture in the UK that has already changed shape again.
Business segments
Two engines drive the company today - a trading desk that moves petrochemicals between producers and buyers, and a treasury portfolio that has grown to dominate the balance sheet - while a third, a plastic-recycling bet, arrived and unravelled within two years.
1. Petrochemical trading: the operating heartbeat
The company buys and sells a handful of industrial chemicals to business customers, earning its keep on the spread between purchase and sale, with no factories to feed and a built-in volume anchor in its associate company.
- Light-asset intermediary - it trades Orthoxylene, Phthalic Anhydride, Maleic Anhydride, Benzoic Acid and other petrochemical products, recognising revenue when goods are delivered and ownership risks pass to the buyer. With no manufacturing plant to run, its operating assets are simply cash, receivables and inventory held for resale.
- Anchored by an associate - a related-party trading agreement with I G Petrochemicals Limited, the very company that bought its Maleic Anhydride business, allows up to ₹50 Crores of annual trade between them, giving the trading desk a large, stable counterparty.
- Diversified customers, concentrated working capital - no single customer accounts for 10% or more of group revenue, yet the business runs on modest receivables of about ₹793 lakhs and payables of roughly ₹453 lakhs as of March 2025, a tight cycle typical of a trader that does not extend long credit.
- Promoter-network plumbing - the company also provides a Letter of Credit facility of up to ₹30 Crores a year to Bluesky Petrochem Limited, a promoter-group trading entity, embedding it further in a web of related-party chemical flows.
2. Treasury and investments: the balance-sheet engine
A board-managed portfolio of equities, debentures, alternate investment funds and property has grown to over ₹7,400 lakhs, turning the company into a financial holding entity alongside its trading operations.
- Multi-asset book marked to market - the portfolio spans equity shares, debentures, alternate investment funds (AIFs), preference shares and mutual funds, all classified as fair value through profit and loss and revalued at each reporting date. As of March 2025, total investments stood at ₹7,439.10 lakhs.
- A lucrative associate stake - the equity-accounted investment in I G Petrochemicals Limited contributed a share of profit of ₹2,407.17 lakhs in FY21 alone, making it a recurring source of investment income that dwarfs the trading operation’s asset base.
- Bricks-and-mortar yield - investment properties held for long-term rental income and capital appreciation were fair-valued at ₹3,967 lakhs as of March 2022 and generated rental income of ₹244.40 lakhs in FY21, adding a steady, non-trading cash stream.
- Risk appetite with scars - the treasury book has taken hits, most notably a full write-off of a GBP 770,000 (₹694.69 lakhs) stake in Blue Lotus International Limited, a related-party entity that entered voluntary liquidation during Covid-19, recorded as an exceptional item in FY21.
3. Plastic recycling: the venture that came and went
Acquired in early 2024 and lost to administration by October of the same year, the UK subsidiary Q C Polymer was a brief foray into turning waste PET bottles into recycled flakes for packaging and textiles.
- Bought, not built - the company acquired an 80% controlling stake in Q C Polymer Limited, an England-incorporated recycler, in January 2024 for GBP 0.90 million in cash plus a debt commitment of up to GBP 2 million, later raising its stake by a further 5%.
- Early-stage operation - the target had turnover of just £51,274 in FY23, making it a nascent business at the point of acquisition, producing plastic bales and rPET flakes from post-consumer bottles.
- Control lost within the year - on 28 October 2024 an administrator was appointed by the subsidiary, causing Mysore Petro to lose control and removing it from the consolidated group, a rapid reversal that extinguished the recycling segment as an operating business.
Group structure and partners
The company sits inside a tight network of promoter-linked entities, anchored by a deep, decades-old relationship with its associate I G Petrochemicals, while its sole subsidiary has already slipped from its grasp.
- The I G Petrochemicals axis - the associate is both a major investee and a trading counterparty, with Managing Director Shri M. M. Dhanuka holding a directorship there and the two companies bound by a ₹50 Crore annual trading agreement. I G Petrochemicals also bought Mysore Petro’s Maleic Anhydride business in 2017, making it the destination for the company’s manufacturing exit.
- A subsidiary lost to administration - Q C Polymer Limited, the UK plastic recycler acquired in 2024, ceased to be a consolidated subsidiary when an administrator was appointed in October 2024, leaving the company with no controlled operating entities outside India.
- Promoter-group ties - Bluesky Petrochem Limited, controlled by the promoter group, benefits from a Letter of Credit facility of up to ₹30 Crores a year extended by the company, while a past investment in Blue Lotus International Limited, controlled by a relative of key management, was fully written off after its liquidation.
- Concentrated ownership - as of March 2022, just 19 shareholders holding 10,001 shares or more accounted for 84.19% of total shares, with 5,756 shareholders on the register and over 97% of shares held in dematerialised form.