Wheels India`s partner issues open offer to acquire 14% in the company

TVS Group company Wheels India's foreign partner Titan Europe Plc is planning to increase his stake in the company by acquiring shares from the public. If the open offer, which is estimated to be around Rs 102.96 crore, gets through then the foreign partner will become a majority shareholder.

According to Wheels India's announcement to BSE on Thursday ICICI Securities, the manager of the Offer, on behalf of Titan Europe PLC and Titan International Inc as Person Acting in Concert, is planning to acquire 14.38 per cent.

The acquisition will be through an open offer to acquire 1,419,405 shares constituting 14.38 per cent of the fully diluted voting equity share capital of Wheels India Ltd from public shareholders. Titan Europe is an international engineering group which designs and manufactures wheels, undercarriage components and assemblies for tracked and wheeled off-road vehicles.

According to BSE's announcement the offer price is of Rs 725.38 per fully paid up equity share as per the regulations, with the calculation total consideration for the offer estimated to be around Rs 102.96 crore.

It may be noted that Titan Europe Plc, which is one of the promoters of Wheels India, according to BSE data is currently holding around 3,544,470 shares, which is around 35.91 per cent of the total share in the company. The company also has a technical-financial collaboration with Titan Europe.

Once the open offer completes successfully, the share holding of Titan Europe would go up to 50.29 per cent in the company, while the Indian promoters, including T V Sundaram Iyengar & Sons Ltd, Sundaram Finance Ltd and Souther Roadways Ltd will hold the rest.

Srivats Ram, MD of Wheels India was not available for comment. It may be note he is one of the founder family members of the TVS Group.

Wheels India has grown as a leading manufacturer of steel wheels for passenger cars, utility vehicles, trucks, buses, agricultural tractors and construction equipment in India. The company supplies 2/3rd of the domestic market requirement and exports 18% of the turnover to North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and South Africa.