History
Asian Paints began in February 1942 in a garage in Gaiwadi, Girgaon, in Mumbai. The four founders were friends from the Jain community: Champaklal Choksey, Chimanlal Choksi, Suryakant Dani and Arvind Vakil. The timing explains the opportunity. During the Second World War and the Quit India Movement of 1942 a temporary ban on paint imports left the Indian market to foreign companies and to Shalimar Paints. A small local maker had room to sell.[1]
Growth in the first decade was in volume rather than in profit. By 1952 the company reported an annual turnover of 23 crore rupees but a profit before tax margin of only about 2 per cent. It kept going, and by 1967 it had become the leading paint manufacturer in the country, a position it has not since given up. The company history kept by Moneycontrol records the same arc from the garage to the market lead, and the rename from Asian Oil and Paint Company in 1945 to Asian Paints (India) in 1965 and finally to Asian Paints Limited in 1973.[1][2]
International expansion began with the smallest possible step: a subsidiary in Fiji in 1978, followed by Nepal in 1983. The first international acquisition came in 1999, when the company took over Sri Lanka's second largest paint company, Delmege Forsyth and Company. Oman followed in 2000 through a joint venture with the Al Hassan Group.[1]
The busy year was 2002. Asian Paints bought a 60 per cent stake in the Egyptian manufacturer SCIB Chemicals for 24.5 crore rupees, took a 50.1 per cent stake in the Singapore listed Berger International, which had operations in 11 countries across South East Asia, West Asia, the Caribbean, China and Malta, for 20.8 million dollars, and entered Bangladesh through a joint venture with the Confidence Group. Taubmans Paints in Fiji and Samoa was added in 2003, and the Malta subsidiary was sold in 2004.[1][11][12]
Not every market worked. By 2010 the company had closed loss making operations in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand and China, and its retreat from those markets was reported at the time as an end to the first phase of its overseas push. It kept the businesses that paid: the stake in Berger International Singapore was raised to 96.48 per cent in 2013, Indonesia was entered in 2014 through the Singapore subsidiary, a 51 per cent stake in the Ethiopian paint maker Kadisco Paint was bought in 2015 for 18.95 million dollars, and Sri Lanka's Causeway Paints was bought outright in 2017 for 387 crore rupees.[1][7][9][10][13][14]
The most recent chapter is at home. In 2014 the company bought Sleek International, a modular kitchen maker, and the bath fittings company Ess Ess, and in 2020 it started Beautiful Homes, a personalised interior design service with experiential studios in Indian cities. In 2022 it bought 49 per cent of the decorative lighting company White Teak for 180 crore rupees and added another 11 per cent the following year. Decor is no longer a side line; it is the part of the business that sells to the household that has just finished painting.[1]
