Tata Chemicals said 24th Nov it would put on hold expansion of its soda ash plant in Gujarat. It has raised $300M to repay a loan taken to acquire a firm in the US. "We have put on hold expansion of our soda ash plant in Gujarat due to weak demand," Tata Chem executive V-P P K Ghose said. Tata Group company had planned the expansion of its Mithapur soda ash plant in Gujarat to 1.2M/tpa (9,75,000/tpa). Meanwhile, a company statement said $300M has been raised to repay the $350 million bridge loan taken by Valley Holdings Inc, US subsidiary of Tata Chemicals, for the acquisition of General Chemical Ind Products Inc (GCIP). "Tata Chemicals has already paid $50M from internal accruals," the company said in a statement. "Despite the current global financial market conditions, it was heartening to see the faith shown by financial institutions in underwriting the funding," Ghose said in the statement. "GCIP has successfully completed the underwriting for the funding of $300 million," the statement added. "However, the facility is without any recourse to Tata Chemicals," it added. "The transaction has been managed by StanChart-led consortium, which includes ABN Amro, ANZ Banking Group, HSBC Bank, Calyon and SBI," Tata Chemicals said. In early 2008, Valley Holdings had acquired the soda ash producer General Chemical Industrial Products.
