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| Ghodawat group plans Rs 2000 crore expansion |
| P B Jayakumar / Mumbai Feb 16, 2009, 00:27 IST |
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Pan masala to salt manufacturer Ghodawat Group plans to invest above Rs 2000 crore in next 3-4 years, mainly in renewable energy business to set up wind farms and wind turbine manufacturing facilities.
The Kolhapur based group plans to set up over 200-250 mega watt of wind farms in India with an investment of close to Rs1200 crore. Another Rs 400 crore will be invested to expand the wind turbine manufacturing facility coming up at Kolhapur, Shrenik S Ghodawat, managing director, Ghodawat Industries told Business Standard.
The near Rs 1000 crore turnover Ghodawat Group which consists of nine firms into diverse business like gutka and pan masala, food processing, textile, chemical, heavy engineering, real estate and floriculture, has already set up 55 mw of wind farms in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Rajastan with an investment of Rs275 crore.
"We target group revenues of Rs 5000 crore by 2013 and half of the revenues are targeted from energy business and 25 per cent will come from FMCG business" he said.
Ghodawat Energy, the wind turbine manufacturing arm of the Group, invested Rs 55 crore in setting up a wind turbine assembling unit in Kolhapur. Soon another Rs 50 crore will be pumped in to create additional infrastructure to manufacture 20-30 machines annually in the first phase. The second phase expansion is aimed to increase this capacity to 600 turbines in an year.
The company has a technical tie-up with AMSC Windtech GmbH of Austria, for training, supply chain management and grid connectivity. Ghodawat Energy has entered into outsourcing contracts with Jaki of Germany and DHI of China to source gear boxes, generators from Elim of Austria, blades from LM Glass of Bangalore and electrical systems from AMSC.
The prototype of G-1650 wind turbines will be launched by March 15, this year. Besides the local market, focus will be to tap the wind energy potential in Middle East, South East Asia and African countries. Ghodawat Energy targets a turnover of Rs300-350 crore by March 2010, he said.
Shrenik Industries, wind tower manufacturing arm of the Group with a current turnover of Rs 50-60 crore, will be converted as a subsidiary of Ghodawat Energy. The Group plans to invest Rs 65 crore to expand manufacturing capacity for towers from the current 250 towers per annum to 400 towers to become the largest wind turbine tower maker in Asia, said Shrenik.
He said talks are on with venture capitalists from Singapore, UK and India to dilute about 10-15 per cent of the stake in Godhawat Energy, to raise Rs80-90 crore. The privately held Group will rely on internal accruals and will raise 60-65 per cent equity from domestic banks to fund the expansion plans. A couple of firms in the Group such as Ghodawat Energy or Godhawat Agro may also approach the capital markets in the coming years.
He said the Group also planned to invest Rs 200 crore to increase capacity of edible oil solvent extraction unit at Lathur, to set up a salt factory and expansion of its food processing units. Further, Rs 100 crore will be invested in real estate and floriculture business to become the largest floriculture and horticulture player in India, with a production of five lakh flowers every day.
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