As of now, we have a $30 billion plan that's playing out. So this is not headline farming as one could call it. This is actually, you know, money going into the ground or ground breaking and, new teams coming together, depending on the business that, we're talking about. To give you a rough sense, since you and some people from the audience at least would know our different companies.It's about $10 billion for Hindalco, six for, Telecom, for increasing our network of 4G and 5G. 2 billion for, we just made an acquisition in, the renewable space that takes us up the pecking order in that, indust...
What Kumar Birla said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Kumar Birla said his group took a contrarian view over the last three years and grew aggressively, with a $30 billion investment plan underway across businesses. He specified $10 billion for Hindalco, $6 billion for telecom network expansion, $2 billion for a renewable acquisition, $1 billion for green fiber, and $1 billion for carbon black. He addressed ease of doing business, arguing India has improved tremendously in the last decade though every country has pain points. On tariffs, he dismissed the idea of simply moving manufacturing due to tariffs, citing cost and capital differences, and instead emphasized being local for local customers, exemplified by a $5 billion aluminum facility in Alabama and carbon black plants in Hungary and India. He ruled out reviving Novelis's IPO soon, focusing on commissioning the plant. He downplayed competition in cement and aluminum, citing deep ecosystem relationships and institutional memory. He welcomed domestic retail investors' entry as a positive structural change reducing dependence on foreign flows.
Key takeaways
Birla said the $30 billion plan is real, not headline farming, with $10 billion for Hindalco and $6 billion for telecom.
Novelis IPO will not proceed now; Birla sees no compulsion to list and focuses on commissioning the $5 billion Alabama plant.
Birla emphasized a multi-local strategy, investing close to customers, citing carbon black capacity in Hungary and India.
Birla welcomed domestic retail investor entry as a positive structural change, making India self-sufficient in capital.
4:09Do you think this will lead domestic businesses to invest overseas, invest in overseas manufacturing capacity rather than making it here and exporting, and is that indeed the intent behind these moves?
Could you, I want to come to your group now? You have significantly invested in new businesses as well as in capacity expansion. Could you give us a quick overview of what your group has been up to over the last few years and what lies ahead for you?
So like I said, Sutjit, we took a contrarian view in the last 3 years and actually grew our businesses pretty aggressively. As of now, we have a 30 billion dollar plan that's playing out. So this is not headline farming as one could call it. This is actually, you know, money going into the ground or groundbreaking and new teams coming together depending on the business that we're talking about. To give you a rough sense, since you and some people from the audience at least would know our different companies, it's about 10 billion dollars for Hindalco, six for telecom for increasing our network of 4G and 5G. 2 billion for, we just made an acquisition in the renewable space that takes us up the pecking order in that industry by several notches. A billion for green fiber, which is fiber but now made green in terms of the energy that's being used. Another billion for carbon black. Carbon black is a specialty chemical that's used majorly in tires and anything that's black. So say for example ink as well. Interestingly, for carbon black for example, we are investing in increasing capacity in Hungary, in India. Again, going back to being close to the consumer and multi-local as opposed to just being multinational. So that's quite a sweep of industries and I think that again is reflective of the faith that we have in the Indian economy and its future.
Kumar, I don't think anyone has ever accused you of trying to headline farm. If anything, our complaint usually is that you don't come out and say enough. But anyway, I'm very, very glad you're here today. Look, the ease of doing business and a steady and predictable regulatory regime is very critical to, you know, very critical to economic growth. You operate businesses in a number of different regulatory environments, number of different countries. How does India compare in those terms?
So, that's an interesting question and I'm glad you asked it because, you know, every country, every economy has its own issues, has its own pain points, its choking points. We are putting up a large plant in an advanced economy where we were allotted land by the local authorities, we spent 6 months of intense work. Just before we were to break ground, we had to change our site largely because of environmental reasons. So, I think that we aren't the only people who have issues like this, issues like land, environment, judicial, you know, local laws, almost across the board and we have a presence practically across the globe, you will have issues that come up that a lot of the times are of similar nature, sometimes they're peculiar to the country that we're talking about. So, I don't think we should be feeling particularly sort of dejected about ease of doing business. I think that like I said, every country has its own pain points. But having said that, in the last decade, a lot has been done by the government. Financialization, talk about tax reforms, so much has happened, digitalization. And I think that the ease of doing business in the last decade has gone up tremendously compared to where we were before that.
We're seeing the use of tariffs as a key instrument of control by certain rich countries. Do you think this will lead domestic businesses to invest overseas, invest in overseas manufacturing capacity rather than making it here and exporting, and is that indeed the intent behind these moves?
I think that you're right. Probably that is the intent. But I don't think it works like that. I think companies would have a far more nuanced approach to investing. You can't, for example, invest in an aluminum facility in the US just because there are tariffs on aluminum exported from India for example theoretically. I mean the cost structure is different, the capital requirement will be different, the kind of people that you require to work in that kind of environment may be there, may not be there. I don't think that's something that can practically happen. I'm saying this again because it's relevant. I think the route that we have taken, and this kind of predates what's happened in the last few years, of being local for our local customers. And I'll give you two examples. Novelis, which is the largest producer of aluminum rolled products, we're putting up for the North American market a $5 billion greenfield facility in Alabama in a place called Bay Minette. That is to serve for aluminum rolled product supply for cans as also for auto, auto requires more of lightweighting. And that is being put up only to specifically serve our North American clients. It won't go and sort of move into Europe or into South America. So that's a large investment in a new economy for us relatively. We haven't made a greenfield investment of $5 billion at one location anytime in the past. It's normally been more phased out. Another example is carbon black like I said a little while ago. We have 16 plants in 12 countries. We've chosen to invest in three. Again, logic being close to customers as opposed to manufacturing in one or two locations and distributing around the world. So that's what our response has been.
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Birla, K. (2026, August 22). Aditya Birla Group unveils $30 Billion investment plan across key businesses | ET WLF 2026 [Interview transcript]. ET Digital. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1249986/
MLA
Kumar Birla. "Aditya Birla Group unveils $30 Billion investment plan across key businesses | ET WLF 2026." ET Digital, 22 Aug. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1249986/.
BibTeX
@misc{birla2026_1249986,
author = {Kumar Birla},
title = {Aditya Birla Group unveils $30 Billion investment plan across key businesses | ET WLF 2026},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, ET Digital. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {aug},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1249986/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
