Sandur Manganese & Iron Ores (SMIORE), the flagship company of the Sandur Group, was founded by former ruler of the Princely State of Sandur, Yeshwanthrao Hindurao Ghorpade in 1954.

The major activities of SMIORE are mining of finest low grade, low phosphorous, manganese and iron ores, facility for production of ferroalloys and management of hydro-electric power generation.

The company also owns facilities to produce resistor networks and copper clad laminates. The company undertook the production of solar photo-voltaic modules for various applications and is capable of producing 30MW of solar panels. During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008, the company produced 2,17,404 tonnes of manganese ores.

It is the first and among the largest electrometallurgy units and the second largest manganese ore company in the private sector after the public sector MOIL, Nagpur. SAIL was once its largest customer.

In 1998, the company started tottering due to 'an unviable power tariff' under dues of Rs 92 crore to Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation, most of it as interest. The company was declared sick in May 2000, it once had a liability of over Rs 350 crore.

Associated with the management of the company from its inception, the ex-Chairman & Managing Director, M Y Ghorpade, with a Master’s Degree in Economics from Cambridge, has nurtured and developed SMIORE into one of the finest professionally managed companies in India, doing business in the fields of manganese ore, ferroalloys and electronics.

The Group also owns facilities to produce resistor networks and copper clad laminates. Recently, the Company has undertaken production of solar photo-voltaic modules for various applications using the above facilities, which are one of their kinds in the world and are jointly capable of producing 30 MW of solar panels annually.

The company is engaged in the business of low phosphorous, manganese and iron ores mining.