Vijai Electricals setting up plant in Mexico

Vijai Electricals Limited, a Hyderabad-based power and distribution transformers maker, is in the process of setting up a distribution transformer manufacturing plant in Mexico, its second outside the country, involving an investment of $20 million (approximately Rs 90 crore), said its chairman and managing director D Jai Ramesh.

“We are currently working on the financial closure of the Mexico project and are hopeful of making it operational in the next one year,” he told mediapersons here on Sunday.

Ramesh said the company’s first overseas plant, set up with an outlay of $15 million (Rs 67.5 crore) in Brazil, is currently operational. The company expects the Brazil plant to bring in $80 million (Rs 360 crore) revenues and the Mexico facility $150 million (Rs 675 crore). Vijai Electricals, which reported revenues of over Rs 2,000 crore last year, currently garners Rs 250 crore revenues from its overseas operations.

The company today handed over a 333-MVA (mega volt ampere), 1,200-kilo volt (KV) ultra-high voltage power transformer to SK Chaturvedi, chairman and managing director of Power Grid Corporation of India Limited.

Ruling out any possibility of going in for an initial public offering (IPO) in the near-term, he said the company was, at present, looking at raising a private equity fund to meet its working capital requirements.

“We are looking at some private equity fund with a minority dilution,” he said, while brushing aside reports that General Electric (GE) was in race to buy a majority stake in the company as “rumours”. While Jai Ramesh holds 95.3 per cent in the company, the remaining is held by 3i Infrastructure India Fund.

Ramesh said the company’s orderbook stood at Rs 2,500 crore, of which Rs 2,000 crore worth of orders were to be executed this year, with the rest likely to spill over to next year.

“We already spent more than Rs 600 crore in capital expenditure over the last two-three years. This infrastructure that we have currently will enable us to reach $1 billion in turnover in the next three years,” he said.