Alstom Ropes In Consultant To Pen Merger Strategy

Alstom Group, the French energy transmission and distribution giant, will take up the consolidation of its six local operational units after the consultants appointed by the company recommend a route map for the mergers submits its report. Alstom has 14 units in India.

Announcing this at Alstom Limited's 45th annual general meeting, Krishna Pillai, country president of Alstom group companies in India, said the reports of the consultants were expected to be finalised within four months.

Pillai said the parent group had given the mandate of preparing the report to several consultancy majors.

The proposed consolidation was aimed at presenting a single face in India, with Alstom being projected as an infrastructure company.

The five major companies of the group operating in India are Alstom Power, Alstom Ltd, Alstom Power Boilers, Alstom Systems and Alstom Transport.

The first two companies are listed with stock exchanges, while the others are subsidiaries of the parent company.

The two listed companies have a about one lakh shareholders whose nod would be essential for the merger.

Before any decision is made on the merger, the issue of stamp duty will also have to be considered.

The shareholders of Alstom Ltd today passed the special resolution pertaining to appointment of Pillai as a director of the company.

They also passed an ordinary resolution on appointing Deloitte Haskins & Sells as auditors in place of the retiring auditors Arthur Andersen & Associates.

Alstom Ltd chairman (non-executive) S K Poddar said the power equipment maker would grow in areas such as switchgear, control panel, pumps, fans and meter where its parent had technological advantages.

"All divisions barring transformer and motors are performing well. We aim at grabbing more market shares in these areas by introducing innovative products," he said.

The restructuring, codenamed Stretch 30, started three years ago have begun yielding dividends.

It has helped the company streamlining its workforce, reducing manufacturing sites from 10 to 6, improving production cycle time with reduction in break even level and investing in plan and equipment of Rs 28.9 crore.

Sales were marginally lower by 5 per cent- to Rs 395.24 crore in 2000-01 from Rs 414.08 crore in 1999-2000- mainly due to pressure on margins.

Last year, the company incurred a net loss of Rs 2.75 crore compared with a net profit of Rs 1.72 crore in 1999-2000.

The order book position was flat, at about Rs 176 crore as at the end of the last financial year. However, the position has started improving.