Spectacles of 2025: Ambani’s solar giga factories, Tata’s chip factory and Adani’s debt reduction

The year 2025 is going to open on a high note for corporate India, which will see Mukesh Ambani launching his ambitious solar energy Giga factories, Tata constructing semiconductor manufacturing units and Kumar Mangalam Birla and Gautam Adani battling it out in cement making. There will be large scale debt reductions besides acquisitions and capacity expansions while the Indian economy is projected to grow at a moderate pace in FY26 due to inflation and its impact on overall consumption and urban demand. The large conglomerates want to ready their projects in the lean period to cash in on the next upcycle. What will the top six biggies do in 2025?

Reliance Industries: New Energy Race

RIL is set to launch its new energy venture in the coming months, beginning with the first phase of 20GW solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing facility. Ambani has an ambitious target to build a new energy business to the size of its petrochemical business ($7.5 billion EBITDA in FY24) in the next 5-7 years, said CLSA in a report.

The four giga factories will be integrated manufacturing facilities in the solar value chain—for manufacturing of polysilicon to PV cells and finally, the energy storage. In 2025, RIL plans to commission the 20 GW solar power generation project. The power output will be fully utilised for its green hydrogen production and Ambani plans to produce green hydrogen at $1 a kilogram.

Tata: Semiconductor to Airline

Tata Electronics, a subsidiary of Tata Group, and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC) of Taiwan, joined hands to build the country’s first fabrication unit in Gujarat at a cost of ₹91,000 crore. According to the central government, the plant will produce 50,000 wafer starts per month (WSPM). The government has also given approvals for setting up two ATMP (assembly, testing, marking, and packaging) units in Morigaon (Assam) and Dholera (Gujarat).

Tata’s acquired airline, Air India, is expected to see the delivery of Airbus aircraft in large numbers in 2025. The airline topped up its 470 aircraft order placed in 2023 with another 100 Airbus jets recently. Tata Motors’ EV portfolio expansion, Tata Power’s solar investments and Tata Steel’s Kalinganagar expansion to 8MT from 3MT are the other highlights.

Birla: Massive Capacity Additions

Aditya Birla Group’s cement firm, UltraTech, is building additional cement making capacities at 16 locations across India that will add another 34 million tonnes (MT) to its March 2024 capacity of 152.7MT. UltraTech, which took 36 years to build 100 MT capacity, added the next 50 MT in five years. The cement maker acquired 55.5% stake in Chennai-based India Cements, which has 14.45MT capacity, in a deal worth ₹4,000 crore. It also took over 10.75MT Kesoram Cement in a deal valued at ₹7,600 crore. It will also acquire a minority stake of 8.69% from the promoters of Meghalaya-based Star Cement in a deal worth up to ₹851 crore.

The integration of acquired entities and the commencement of greenfield capacities will be the key for the Aditya Birla Group’s ramp up in 2025. Birla forayed into paint manufacturing with three Birla Opus Paints plants at Panipat (Haryana), Ludhiana (Punjab) and Cheyyar (Tamil Nadu) in 2024. The business will see profit-focused market expansion in the new year. The investors expect the Birla group to foray into B2B e-commerce for building materials, direct-to-customer (D2C) digital platform for branded apparel, and branded jewellery retailing in 2025.

Godrej: Expansion in two directions

The Godrej Group, which recently split the business between cousins Adi Godrej and Jamshyd Godrej, looks to foray into new areas. Adi Godrej’s son Pirojsha-headed Godrej Capital, a home financing focused company, is diversifying into affordable housing, besides micro credit and supply chain finance. The NBFC has become one of the early adopters of Generative AI (GenAI), with the launch of various Generative AI solutions in 2024.

Godrej & Boyce (G&B), which is controlled by Jamshyd Godrej, plans to manufacture zinc-manganese batteries for large scale power storage as part of the expansion. It is also considering manufacturing thermo chips for camera and virtual reality devices. The company recently set up a pilot factory for the concrete recycling for using it in new constructions.

JSW: All About EV

Sajjan Jindal’s JSW Group, which picked up a 35% stake in MG Motor India and forayed into electric car manufacturing, plans to come out with a new car every three to six months. Jindal had earlier diversified into cement and paints manufacturing.

JSW is building an integrated EV and components manufacturing project in Odisha at an investment of ₹40,000 crore. It proposed to invest ₹25,000 crore for an EV, battery and EV components manufacturing unit at Naraj in Cuttack, besides ₹15,000 crore investment for copper smelter and lithium refinery complex at Paradip in Jagatsinghpur. The steel major has also indicated plans to launch its own EV brand.

Adani: Debt Reduction Priority

Adani Enterprises Ltd. announced that it will exit Adani Wilmar Ltd. by divesting its entire 44% stake in the joint venture Adani Wilmar Ltd. to raise $2 billion. It will divest 13% of shares in an open offer, and Wilmar International agreed to acquire the rest 31% stake. The proceeds from the sale are expected to be used for debt reduction and expansion. The group had about ₹2.6 lakh crore gross debt in September.

The group has also announced its foray in chip manufacturing. Maharashtra government has approved the chip manufacturing project, which will be jointly set up by Israel’s Tower Semiconductor and the Adani Group in Panvel, Raigad district. It will involve an investment of ₹58,763 crore in the first phase, with an additional ₹25,184 crore in the second phase.

In the cement business, the Adani Group-owned Ambuja Cements will merge the acquired companies, Saurashtra-based Sanghi Industries and Andhra Pradesh-based Penna Cement Industries with itself. Ambuja also acquired Orient Cement for ₹8,100 crore from CK Birla group. These deals will empower the group to take on the largest player in the segment, UltraTech.