Hindustan Zinc Limited has always been a good company with great potential. What we did is simply improve upon the legacies. We made a good company better,” says M S Mehta, CEO of erstwhile PSU Hindustan Zinc Limited that was taken over by global metal giant Vedanta group’s Sterlite Industries on April 11, 2002.

Mehta is being modest.

Not only has Hindustan Zinc scaled up capacities, production levels and profits multifold since its disinvestment, it has been in mission mode throughout — a new 1.7 lakh-tonne smelter plant commissioned just last week took only 20 months to set up whereas the world average is 28-30 months.

More importantly, the new plant makes the company the world’s third largest zinc producer, it is already the most cost efficient miner globally and will soon be the world’s lowest-cost zinc producer as well.

And it’s not stopping at that: by 2010, it aims to scale up capacity to 1 million tonnes per year, which would make it the global numero uno in zinc. Incorporated on January 10, 1966, as a public sector company after the takeover of the erstwhile Metal Corporation of India Limited (MCI), Hindustan Zinc, with zinc mines in Dariba, Rampura, Agucha and Zawar and smelter operations in Chanderiya and Chittorgarh, is one of the top performing disinvested PSUs in the country.

Of course, the key numbers and share price reflect that. Back in 2001, the dividend paid on a HZL share was a mere 50 paise. Five years after the sale, the dividend has gone up to Rs 5 per share. The share price has gone from a high of Rs 27 in 2001, to Rs 1,119 last year (now down to Rs 763).

... contd.