Spacewood claims region’s highest ever Rs125 crore loss from New India Assurance 

Nagpur: Spacewood Group has put a claim of around Rs125 crore to its insurer — New India Assurance — after the fire at its plant on Tuesday.

This is expected to be the biggest ever claim amount put up by any private company in the region to claim losses. One of the group’s units at MIDC Hingna estate had caught fire on Tuesday.

Spacewood director Kirit Joshi said the claim has been put up for the loss of physical assets, which include plant and machinery, finished and semi-finished goods and other tangible items.

Even as he agreed that it may be one of the highest claims in local circles, Joshi said the intangible losses in terms of business lost would be much more. Joshi said the amount is high because the plant had high-end machinery imported from Europe. The sum assured by the insurance company also is of almost the same amount, he said.

The fire incident will however not have any major impact on the production. This is because the company has two more set-ups which are functional. One is at MIDC’s Butibori estate and another at Hingna itself. “We will be able to restart the unit that caught fire in six to eight months,” he said.

The unit at plot number T-48 of MIDC Hingna Estate was established in 2003. It holds emotional value for the company because it was the large plot taken over by the group. The unit subsequently expanded on the same land, said Joshi.

Over the years, it emerged as one of the biggest manufacturers of furniture and also the country’s first to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) in this sector. In 2015, Japan’s Sumitomo Forestry had picked up a 26% stake in the company for a value of over $13 million. “The incident has left not only us but also the workers heart broken,” Joshi said.

Source: The Times of India