• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Madhumathi D.S.

Advertisement

Bangalore Feb. 8 In a helicopter market that is picking up on both the demand and supply side, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd has opened up a new sales front with a finance offer along with wet leasing option for its 14-seater Dhruv copters.

A Rs 500-crore corpus to finance potential buyers or lessees will also unlock the Rs 5,000-crore company's huge surplus funds built up over the years, according to Mr D. Shivamurthi, Director - Finance. It could also mean a 10-12 per cent return on the credit.

The defence PSU is looking at the civil market for its star product, launched a couple of years ago. While aircraft companies commonly have a credit option directly or through their financing associates, HAL expects to capture an emerging market by financing 15 copters a year.

Helicopters of the Dhruv class typically cost around Rs 25-35 crore.

Its current and potential customers include state governments, corporate hospitals and business houses like ONGC. The company recently launched an air ambulance service which it hopes will get it hospitals as customers. Among the others, Karnataka, Jharkhand are the two States that have wet-leased a Dhruv each; the North East, too, is in the picture.

More Stories on : Airlines | Security | PSU

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
HAL to offer loans for Dhruv copters

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line