The Hindu Business Line : KPIT Cummins in expansion mode

The Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer, KPIT Cummins, Mr S.B. (Ravi) Pandit, on a visit to Hyderabad, told Business Line the company's inorganic plans were set to fructify with the acquisition of two companies, one each in Europe and in the US, and it was likely to announce them this week.

Mr Pandit said the acquisitions would help the company foray into new areas in the manufacturing and VLSI (very large scale integration) design space. It would provide access to new geographies and clients.

"The company has about 1,800 people spread across two locations in India and other centres. Organically, we expect to grow about 30 per cent this year. We are not looking at new centres, but expect to grow in Pune, the home base, and Bangalore," he said.

KPIT has made rapid strides building on acquisitions over the years. "Even without the acquisitions, we are set to achieve revenues of about $73 million this year, up from $58 million last year. Next year, we expect to touch the $100-million mark even without any acquisitions. This is based on the steady growth the company managed to achieve over the last three years. It grew by 100 per cent last year, 65 per cent a year before and 45 per cent two years ago, he explained.

"Earlier, Lehman Brothers invested about $8.5 million in KPIT, picking up about 8 per cent stake. We received $11 million debt from IFC, which has a flexible payment option. The acquisitions and expansion would be part-funded by this," Mr Pandit said. "The company would not enter new areas and prefer to stay focussed on solutions for the manufacturing sector and embedded software and VLSI design space," he said.

Referring to the clarification the company issued to the stock exchanges about the possibility of acquiring Bristlestone, Mr Pandit said "there was no such move and this was not true."

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