The Hindu Business Line : German co Moeller ties up with HPL India for circuit breakers

MOELLER of Germany has formally entered the Indian market for the manufacture of circuit breakers for domestic and industrial units and equipment for automisation of power distribution systems.

The company is setting up a manufacturing plant at Jabli, Himachal Pradesh, for the purpose through HPL India Pvt. Ltd, with which it signed a 51:49 joint venture (Moeller would have 51 per cent stake in the venture). The two companies have invested 10 million euros in the venture in the ratio of their stake.

"We target a 100-million-euro turnover in the next 4-5 years which would be around seven per cent of our then global sales," said Mr Manfred Schwarzinger, Director, Sales and Marketing, Moeller Group.

The company's current turnover is about one billion euros with 350 sales offices and distribution partners in 90 countries. At present, Moeller's only manufacturing facility in Asia, out of the 16 it has worldwide, is in China. "Right now, the Jabli facility is smaller than the one in China, but the kind of growth we are expecting in India would make the Indian facility bigger than the Chinese in two or three years," said Mr Schwarzinger. The company could also export from India for its customers in other Asian countries, though at a later date.

Moeller's products were imported into India until now. "Last year, about 8-9-million-euro worth of equipments were imported to India. But with this joint venture, we want to expand that market several-fold," he said.

This is the second joint venture HPL India has entered into, the first one being with Socomec of France to manufacture electrical energy metres and industrial switchgears. In the Socomec venture, it has 51 per cent stake. Its total turnover was Rs 175 crore last year.