Trident

Trident Limited is a multinational textile manufacturing company, based in Ludhiana, Punjab. It is the largest manufacturer of terry towels in the world and is among the largest global manufacturers of integrated home textiles. Established in 1990 as a textile manufacturer producing high-quality yarn in Punjab, Trident successfully expanded its business across multiple countries and managed to diversify into sectors such as chemicals, energy and paper. Today, Trident Group is a conglomerate offering products and services to customers across 100 countries.

The company conducted a merger with a self-owned entity, Trident Corporation Limited in 2014, thereby acquiring the largest integrated terry towel unit in the world, located in Budni, Madhya Pradesh.

According to Trident’s latest shareholding pattern, the company’s promoter group accounts for a total of 73.2% holding, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) a small 2.6% share, Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) own only 0.1%, while the public shareholding stands at 23%.

Trident had a market capitalization of ₹18,956 crore as of December 14, 2023. Trident share price has surged over 272% in the last three years.

Trident business operations

Trident mainly operates in four major industry segments of textiles, paper, energy and chemicals.

Textiles

It is Trident’s major business and extends services across three key offerings — yarn, bed, and bath products. Trident yarn produces a total of 458.4 MT yarn per day. The multinational Swedish clothing brand H&M is one of Trident’s clients. For its bed and bath collections, Trident offers a variety of home textiles that provide luxury and softness.

Paper

Trident has produced a paper product that does not indulge in paper generation through the conventional route of cutting trees. Trident Paper makes use of wheat straw and not wood pulp in the production of paper for printing and publishing purposes.

The company does this together with farmers. It empowers over 1 lakh domestic farmers each year by purchasing agro-waste used in the manufacturing process directly from them.

Chemicals

Trident began operations in this segment as Varinder Agro Chemicals Ltd and ventured into the chemicals segment in the year 1985. The company initially started with a production capacity of 100 tons per day (TPD). It is now one of the top manufacturers of sulphuric acid in India, along with having the largest capacity for LR/AR grade sulphuric acid in the country. The company’s current production capacity stands at 310 MT per day.

Energy

Trident Energy generates captive power to meet its in-house energy requirements. The unit has a current production capacity of 50 MW, generating high-pressure steam using by-products like black liquor effluent and biomass, along with coal.

Financial highlights

Total income of the company stood at ₹6,356.6 crore in the financial year ended March 31, 2023 (FY23), shrinking 9.45% from the preceding fiscal’s ₹7,020.23 crore. The textile manufacturing major’s net profit tumbled 47% on a year-on-year (YoY) basis to ₹441.6 crore in FY23 as compared to ₹833.75 crore reported in FY22. Its earnings per share (EPS) in FY23 plunged 47.3% to ₹0.88 from ₹1.67 in the previous financial year. The company’s operating profit margin retracted to 14.89% in FY23 from 21.54% in FY22.