Coates of India, incorporated as a private limited company in Apr.'47, was promoted by Coates Brothers & Company (now widely referred to as Coates Brothers) as a wholly-owned subsidiary to manufacture and market printing inks and allied products.

The company went public in 1962. Coates Brothers, UK, has a 51% stake in the company. The company is a part of Dainippon Ink & Chemicals Inc. (DIC), Japan. DIC along with its subsidiaries are the world leaders in printing inks with global market share of nearly 40%.

During the year 2001 Coates India made a restructuring in their corporate entity. As per the restructuring DIC is in the process of reorgnising its holdings into single entity viz DIC Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. The 51% stake conssiting of 3511624 shares held by Coates Brother Plc UK has been executed a strategic acquisition of Sun Chemical group B.V., in October,2001. Consequent to this acquisition of the shares,the total equity stake held by Sun Chemical group in the company went up to 59.42%.

In the second phase DIC Asia Pacific Pte Ltd has executed a strategic acquisition of the entire stake of 59.42% of the paid up capital from Sun Chemical group B.V.,through an inter-se transfer within the Group Holding. As on December,2002 DIC Asia Pacific Pte Ltd holds 59.54% stake in Coates of India Ltd.

The first unit to manufacture printing inks, surface coatings and allied products came up in 1947 in Calcutta, and other manufacturing units were created and deployed in Chennai (1958), Mumbai (1960), Delhi (1966) and Noida (1990) in a phased manner, to cater to the demands of the local market.

Coates has diversified into the production of industrial adhesives for which the technology was supplied by Bostik, UK which commenced its commercial production in Jul.'93. It undertook a chip project for the in-house manufacture of certain intermediate products. This project lead to a significant improvement in the quality and productivity of the company's core business of inks.

In March 2001 the company has executed a strategic acquisition of the entire share capital of Rohit Industries Pvt Ltd with a view to utilise its resources in an effective manner. Rohit has now become a wholly owned subsidiary of the company. The installed capacity of Printing Inks was increased from 15060 Tonnes to 17280 Tonnes.

The company has broadened its footprint the installed capacity of Printing Ink during the year 2002-03 by 2124 TPA and with this expansion the total capacity has risen to 23376 TPA. The name of the company has been changed during August 2004 from Coates of India Limited to DIC India Limited.