ITC is acquiring Century Pulp and Paper from Aditya Birla Real Estate Ltd in a ₹3,498 crore deal. This is one of ITC’s biggest industrial bets yet.
The deets: Century Pulp and Paper manufactures tissue, board, packaging, and hygiene-grade paper products.
The why: with this deal, ITC gets a 60% jump in its paper manufacturing capacity, taking it from 8 lakh to 12.8 lakh metric tonnes per annum.
ITC already operates four paper facilities, all located in South India. Century’s unit in Lalkuan, Uttarakhand helps diversify its manufacturing footprint into North India.
By the numbers: in FY24, Century clocked ₹3,375 crore in revenue, while ITC’s paper and packaging vertical brought in ₹8,344 crore—12.6% of the conglomerate’s overall revenue last quarter.
Backstory: while ITC is best known for cigarettes and FMCG, paper has quietly become one of its most profitable verticals. It’s also one of the few companies in India with an integrated pulp-to-packaging operation, and this deal fits neatly into that strategy.
For Aditya Birla Real Estate, the sale frees up capital and lets the company focus squarely on its core business.
Zoom out: India is the world’s fifth-largest paper producer, generating over ₹80,000 crore in annual turnover. Demand is rising 6–7% a year, but growth is skewed toward packaging and hygiene, not printing. ITC is clearly placing its chips on the right side of that equation.
