Ramky Plans Buyouts in Australia, Sweden

Inks pact with GE Power for wastewater treatment in India

Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited, a Hyderabad-based waste management company, will be acquiring two companies – one each in Australia and Sweden – for a total consideration of $60 million (approximately Rs 280 crore), said Ramky Group director M Goutham Reddy.

“Post the acquisition of the Cleantech business from Singapore-based Sembcorp last year for $60 million, we are continuing to explore more opportunities, mostly international, in the field of environment and waste management. We are in the initial stages right now in terms of the two proposed buyouts,” he told Business Standard on Monday.

Reddy said the company was primarily expecting these acquisitions to add to the sustainability of the business operations by bringing in new technologies to India. “We still have debt-leveraging capacity in the company to fund these acquisitions,” he said, adding that they expect to seal the deals in the next six months.

Ramky Enviro has signed an agreement with GE Power and Water, a provider of power generation, waste-water and renewable-energy solutions, under which Ramky will use the latter’s ultra filtration (UF) and membrane bioreactor (MBR) technologies for waste-water treatment and recycling in India’s industrial sector.

“The water management market in India is currently in the order of about $10 billion and it is estimated that the need for advanced waste-water treatment in this sector will increase by approximately 18 per cent each year, a huge opportunity to tap into,” Reddy said.

Ramky and GE will also bring a new concept of mobile water treatment plants to the Indian water sector. Set up in containers and mounted on trucks, these plants can be moved quickly to destinations having emergency water requirements.

Ramky and GE will adopt a joint ‘go-to-market’ strategy and are currently working with five major industrial clients in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Reddy said the company was in the process implementing the GE technology for at least 100 clients across the country and expected the Ramky-GE agreement to generate Rs 100 crore revenues in the first year.

Ramky Enviro garnered consolidated revenues of Rs 500 crore last year. “We are hopeful to touch over Rs 1,000 crore this financial year on the back of new projects and the revenues that will flow in from Cleantech and the GE agreement,” Reddy said.