India’s 100 Richest
KRISHNA KUMAR BANGUR
66 | FORBES ASIA OCTOBER 2018
Historical Arc
A shift in steel technology has a family-run leader in graphite electrodes
humming. Even a wary patriarch is making bigger plans.
BY ANURADHA RAGHUNATHAN
C
hina’s decision in 2017
to replace highly pollut-
ing blast furnaces with
electric arc furnaces to
make steel reverberated
all the way to Kolkata, where Graphite
India, a maker of graphite electrodes,
is headquartered. he producer of this
niche carbon product for the electric-
arc process suddenly found itself in the
spotlight as global demand spiked.
he company’s shares have tripled
in rupee terms in the past 12 months,
earning Krishna Kumar Bangur, who
owns a 65 % stake, a debut spot on the
top 1 00. He’s listed at No. 91 with $ 1 .7
billion. Despite the windfall, Ban-
gur, 5 8, has jubilation on hold. “It’s
a feel-good factor—nothing else,” he
says from his oice in Kolkata’s busy
Chowringhee Road. “We cannot aford
to lose our heads. I feel more of a sense
of responsibility now.”
he company’s revenue doubled
to $ 507 million for iscal 201 8, and it
reported a 14 - fold rise in net proit to
$ 159 million. hanks to that stellar per-
formance, it made a maiden appearance
on Forbes Asia’s Best Under a Billion
companies list this year. But with $223
million cash on the books—as of the
June quarter—Bangur is still cautious.
“We won’t mindlessly spend this cash,”
he says. “We are in a venture—not an
adventure.”
Bangur believes that it was this
conservative approach that contributed
to the transformation of his nondescript
maker of graphite electrodes into the
world’s third-largest outit, notching
a 1 2% global market share (excluding
China, which has relied on a lower-
grade technology than more developed
economies).
For all China’s push on electric arc
furnaces—it is aiming to have 20% of
its steel made in lower-polluting mills,
from 9% currently—it holds no pros-
pect of direct sales for the otherwise
internationally minded Graphite India.
he insular industry there doesn’t invite
entry. As Bangur laments, “China is a
black box. Sometimes nobody has a clue
as to what China is all about.”
But its winds blow far. Beyond the
furnaces shit, China also cut back on
steel exports—out of its own environ-
mental concerns as well as pushback
from the European Union, the U.S. and
India on steel dumping. his stoked
steel production in other parts of the
world where electric arc furnaces are
used for 45 % of steelmaking.
