Gautam Thapar, Chairman and CEO of Avantha Group and Parent Company of Ballarpur Industries (BILT), to Deliver Keynote Speech at RISI Indian Seminar

NEW DELHI -

RISI today announced that Gautam Thapar, Chairman & CEO of Avantha Group, will head up the program as the keynote speaker at RISI’s inaugural Indian Seminar. The Avantha Group is the parent company of Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT), one of the major paper producers in the Indian and South East Asian markets. The event, which will focus on the challenges and opportunities in the Indian pulp and paper markets, is scheduled to take place on December 3, 2009 at Le Meridien in New Delhi, India.

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RISI also confirmed that Mr. Anil Kumar, Executive Director and CEO of the Shreyans Group will give a presentation on “The Challenge of Finding Raw Material Supplies: Recovered Paper, Wood, Non-Wood and Plantations Restrictions”.

Conference attendees will also hear presentations from RISI’s economists and engineers on the key issues facing the Indian sector and its place in the global market. In addition, there will be a special presentation given by John Stoffel, Director of Research and Development, Hewlett-Packard on the digital revolution and its impact on printing and paper.

The full program can be viewed here: www.risi.com/events/Indian-Seminar/program.html

Mr. Thapar became Group Chairman of Avantha Group on July 1, 2006. He sits on the boards of various companies in India and overseas, and is one of India’s youngest and brightest global business leaders. In 2008, Mr. Thapar received the coveted Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Manufacturing.

“We are thrilled and honored that Mr. Thapar will be joining the RISI Indian Seminar as the keynote speaker. We are looking forward to hearing his thoughts on the increasing importance of India in the global pulp and paper sector and the challenges and opportunities ahead,” Mike Coffey, CEO of RISI, commented.

Mr. Thapar began his education at the Doon School in India and went on to study chemical engineering in the US. He then returned to India and started his career as a factory assistant in one of the organisation’s manufacturing companies. He rose steadily and steered the organization through a strategic and visionary turnaround, ensuring that the group attained dominant status in key operating sectors.

Mr. Thapar serves as an active member of the Pratham Education Trust and is the President of Thapar University, one of the top twenty technical schools in India. He is the Chairman of The Aspen Institute India, which aims to internationalize India’s business, political and cultural leadership. He also takes an avid interest in promoting the game of golf, and is President of the Professional Golf Tour of India.

HP has signed on as an official sponsor for the event. A variety of sponsorship opportunities are still available. To learn more, please visit: www.risi.com/events/Indian-Seminar/sponsorship.html or email advertising@risi.com.

Conference programs and registration details are available online at www.risi.com/indianseminar

About RISI

RISI is the leading information provider for the global forest products industry. The company works with clients in the pulp and paper, wood products, timber, tissue, nonwovens, printing and publishing industries to help them make better decisions.

Headquartered in Boston (Bedford), Massachusetts, RISI operates offices in Brussels, Belgium; Atlanta, Georgia; San Francisco, California; Portland, Oregon; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Shanghai, China; Singapore; Helsinki, Finland; and Charlottesville, Virginia. More information can be found at www.risi.com

About BILT:

Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT), part of the US$ 3 billion Avantha Group, is India’s largest manufacturer of printing and writing paper. BILT’s subsidiaries include Sabah Forest Industries (SFI), Malaysia’s largest pulp and paper company, and BILT TreeTech Limited (BTTL), which runs BILT’s farm forestry programme in several states in India.

BILT has six manufacturing units across India, which give the company geographic coverage over most of the domestic market. BILT has a dominant share of the high-end coated paper segment in India. The company accounts for over 50% of the coated woodfree paper market, an impressive 85% of the bond paper market and nearly 45% of the hi-bright Maplitho market, besides being India’s largest exporter of coated paper.

About Avantha:

The US$ 3 bn Avantha Group is one of India’s leading business conglomerates. The Group has business interests in diverse areas including power transmission and distribution equipment and services, paper and pulp, energy and infrastructure, food processing, farm forestry, chemicals, IT and ITES. Its successful entities include BILT, Crompton Greaves, The Global Green Company, Avantha Power & Infrastructure, Solaris ChemTech Industries, Biltech Building Elements, Salient Business Solutions, and Avantha Technologies. International subsidiaries include Pauwels, SFI, Intergarden, Ganz, Microsol, Sonomatra, MSE Power Systems and Puszta Konzerv.

Contact: Jennifer Freitas RISI 4 Alfred Circle Bedford, MA 01730 USA Tel: +1-781-734-8949 jfreitas@risi.com

Source: RISI

Jennifer Freitas, RISI, +1-781-734-8949, jfreitas at risi.com