BSRM Steels, a unit of Chittagong-based BSRM Group, is going to set up a new melting plant by investing about Tk 725 crore to produce MS billets, a raw material forsteel.

The new unit at Mirsarai in the port city will have a capacity to produce 4.3 lakh tonnes of MS billets a year, said Tapan Sengupta, executive director of BSRM.

The plant—the fourth of its kind for BSRM—is scheduled to be functional by the next one and a half years.

"The products will be used for meeting the BSRM Group's growing demand for billets," Sengupta said, adding that the existing billet production capacity in the three melting units is 12 lakh tonnes per year.

BSRM Steel is the flagship company of BSRM Group, which started its journey in 1952 and now has a market share of about 20 percent. BSRM Steel was listed on the stockmarket in 2009. Each share of the company was traded betweenTk 94.5 andTk 104.5, before closing atTk 96.1 on Dhaka Stock Exchange yesterday.

Its net profit rose to Tk 209.68 crore in 2015, fromTk 123.92 croreayear ago.

Sponsors hold a 16.89 percent stake in BSRM Steel, institutions 71.95 percent, foreign investors 0.36 percent and general investors the rest 10.8 percent.

BSRM or Bangladesh Steel Re-Rolling Mills got listed on the stockmarket in 2015.

Its net profit rose to Tk 82.76 crore in 2015, from Tk 11.6 crore a year ago. Each BSRM share was traded between Tk 158.9 andTk 175.7, before closing at Tk 161.8 on the DSE yesterday.

Sponsors hold 27.47 percent stake in the company, while institutions 22.32 percent, foreign investors 30.58 percent and general public 19.63 percent, according to the DSE.