Everest to ramp up capacity

Everest Industries Ltd, a building solutions company with head office in New Delhi, is planning capacity expansion in pre-engineered building and cement roofing sheets manufacturing plants in India at an expected investment of around Rs 100 crore.

With the expansion, the company plans to nearly double manufacturing capacity in the PEB solutions business. It has entered into commercial operations in the pre-engineered steel building business to design, manufacture and erect infrastructure projects including factory sheds, warehouses, airports, metro stations, railway stations and commercial buildings, almost two years ago.

We are planning a PEB manufacturing facility with a capacity of around 40,000-60,000 tonnes per annum.

The investment would be around Rs 40 crore, said Manish Garg, president, steel building solutions, Everest Industries. Besides, the company is also setting up a fibre cement roofing plant at Balasore in Orissa for an investment of around Rs 60 crore.

It is looking at locations in West, South and Eastern parts of the country for setting up the plant and plans are expected to be ready by the end of the present fiscal. It expects to start civil works in the next fiscal, he added. The investment would be a mix of internal accruals, term loans or external commercial borrowings (ECBs).

At present, it has a manufacturing facility for PEB in Roorkee, Uttaranchal with a manufacturing capacity of around 60,000 tonne a year. The company has undertaken around 500 projects in 25 states covering an area of around 30 million sq ft built up area, under the segment.

The pre-engineered building business in the country is approximately Rs 3,000 crore and we occupy around six per cent market share in it, at present. The market is expected to grow to Rs 5,000-7,000 crore in the next five years with around 15 per cent growth a year. We are planning to tap this opportunity, he said.

With the technology, the time for construction can be brought down to a third in conventional factory building method, he said. The business contributed around 25 per cent of the company’s revenues of around Rs 720 crore, last fiscal. The company expects revenue from the segment to grow to Rs 200 crore in the present fiscal.

Meanwhile, it has completed acquisition of land fibre cement roofing plant at Balasore and is expected to commence construction in another month, said Garg.

It presently has five plants in various parts of the country, including the Roorkee plant for pre-engineered steel building solutions.

The manufacturing capacity for cement roofing sheets is expected to grow from the present 700,000 tonne a year to over 800,000 tonne a year in next one year, with completion of the manufacturing facility at Balasore, he said.