Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Aug 19, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Aug 19, 2004 |
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Corporate
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New Projects Alfa Laval to increase capacity in Pune plant Our Bureau
Pune , Aug.18 ENGINEERING solutions provider Alfa Laval said here on Wednesday that the company has commenced work on increasing its manufacturing facilities in Pune by over 40 per cent riding on increased relocation of manufacturing from the group's European operations and increased sourcing out of the Indian operations. The company is also simultaneously in talks with a number of companies for acquisitions, which will either add to their capacity or expand the range of their products, Managing Director, Mr Satish Tandon said. "We are looking at biotech, pumps and companies in the water desalination plant business for acquisitions initially," Mr Tandon said adding that the results of the discussions under way will emerge in 7-8 months from now. "Since we are in the exports business, the effort will be to acquire companies in the region, Gujarat, Mumbai or south India from where the logistics will be easier," Mr Tandon said. The company's manufacturing operations which grew by Rs 50 crore in the last two years will grow to Rs 80 crore this year, Mr John Krogager, Vice-President-Operations, said adding it is now running out of capacities. The company has now acquired land adjacent to its facilities where work has commenced on a new factory which will focus on the high speed decanter business, fabrication and separators business, he said adding it will invest upwards of Rs 30-35 crore in buildings, machinery and manpower for the new facility. "We also have plans to set up a flow factory and a pump and valve manufacturing set up but that will be later when we have the space for it," he added. Alfa Laval's group companies are now increasingly relocating manufacturing operations of various products to India. The group sources an estimated Rs 80-90 crore of products from Alfa Laval India annually and this is expected to double in the next couple of years according to Mr Krogager. Alfa Laval is also, meanwhile, working on expanding its sub-contractor/vendor network and the company has till date invested an estimated Rs 3 crore in the manufacturing units of some of the sub-contractors who work exclusively for it, Mr Tandon said. Meanwhile, the company has recently snapped up a Rs 76-crore order for two evaporation systems from Vedanta Aluminum Ltd, which is setting up a greenfield 1.4 million tpa alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Orissa. It is also executing a Rs 32-crore project for a cassava-based distillery from International Gasohol Corporation (IGA), Thailand, Mr Tandon said adding that the entire project is for a 5,00,000 litres per day (lpd) plant of which the first phase will have a capacity of 1,70,000 lpd. "We will execute the phase two and three of the plant in the next two years," he added. Alfa Laval is also executing a Rs 5.5-crore project for a 30,000 lpd plant to produce potable alcohol for Sinsurang Liquor co, Thailand, Mr Tandon said adding that the project will be completed in the next 3-5 months. The company is also firming up plans for its foray into the bio-technology where it is currently working with almost all the players in the business, Mr Tandon said. The company has recently bagged orders worth Rs 12 crore for a solvent recovery plant for Biocon's greenfield project, he said.
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