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Hartek Group, the Punjab-based Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) company in conventional and renewable power sectors, is looking to raise at least $100 million in private equity to scale up operations and support growth.
While Hartek group has established itself as an EPC player in sub-station and transmission lines up to 400KV with over 100 sub-stations commissioned for industries and utilities, it had ventured into solar power infrastructure, rooftop solar installations as well as manufacturing of switchboard panels of various voltage class based on technology from Schneider Electric.
“(The emergence of) solar gave us the roadmap to spread across the country, so we cashed in on the opportunity and I feel there is immense opportunities in this country,” Hartek Singh, founder and Group CMD, told BusinessLine .
From ₹145 crore in 2013, Hartek Group grew to ₹267 crore in FY18, Singh noted.
No ray of hope
According to him, however, the current year has been quite bad for the entire solar sector. For Hartek Group, it would mean a dip in revenue of around 20 per cent as some of the bids in the solar sector had been postponed due to uncertainties over tariffs, GST rates and safeguard duty. Singh notes that the company still managed to improve its bottomline as it is being very selective about bidding.
Going ahead, Singh believes Hartek Group will not just recover, but will double its revenue to over ₹500 crore in FY20.
Roping in PE players
To support growth and scale up its capabilities across verticals, Hartek Group is now looking for PE funding.
“We are not going to be very bullish, but we will definitely start with $100 million,” Singh said. “End of the day, in the EPC you have to be very careful, it is one of the most difficult businesses because you are integrating a lot of parts together, so it is very important to deliver. We are not going to go bullish to the extent that we are not going to deliver,” he added.
Bullish targets by govt
According to Singh, EPC players in the solar space as well as power sector capital goods manufacturers are going to benefit the most from government’s bullish targets for solar energy, stabilisation of policies in the sector and larger scales of bids expected from the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI).
Over 24 GW of large scale solar PV projects have been installed in India as on December 2018. In 2018, according to Mercom India Research, over 13 GW of large scale solar projects have been auctioned and awarded.
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