Defiance Tech eyeing buys in US, Australia

The Hinduja group aerospace firm looks beyond design and engineering.

The Hinduja group is looking to set up an assembling and manufacturing facility for civilian and military applications through its group company Defiance Technologies Ltd. The group, which currently offers engineering and designing solutions to aerospace customers, would look at both organic and inorganic growth as its strategy to boost this business.

Speaking to Business Standard, Subu D Subramanian, managing director and chief executive officer, Defiance Technologies Ltd, said, “We are now moving up in a ladder to become a complete Engineering, Manufacturing and Enterprise (EME) solution company.”

As part of its inorganic growth plans, Defiance is looking at acquiring companies in US, Europe and Australia. “Targets are mainly tier-1 companies, which are the suppliers for top OEMs,” said Subramanian. The company is planning to announce one such acquisition by end of this year.

These companies would be small with 50-100 people on the rolls and their expertise would be in design and engineering. Inorganic group will help the company to address a primary challenge of human resources, said Subramanian.

“We will recruit the available human resource in the country and upgrade them. The second approach is acquisitions in foreign countries, which give quick access to human resource and third approach is to join hands with global OEMs,” he said.

At present, the company is in engineering and enterprise solution space and wants to enter manufacturing, he said. “Initially, we will look at contract manufacturing, following which an assembling or a manufacturing facility, by the group. We will focus on low-volume customers to start, to whom end-to-end solution will be offered,” he said.

The company has started designing and supplying doors for a 20-seater aircraft of a US-based aerospace company. Defiance Technologies is working with a Bangalore-based company to assemble these doors.

Meanwhile, Defiance Technologies has become the second company in India to receive the AS 9100 Revision C certification which is considered as the gold standard for aerospace and defence customers globally. Defiance has been awarded this certificate for its entire range of engineering, ERP and IT services with UL-DQS as the certifying body.