Kalyani Group Ties Up With Pwc, Icici For E-Ventures

Kalyani Group has entered into a strategic partnership with ICICI Ltd and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for a major thrust in the e-business area. The combined group would be setting up two e-markets.

The first would be an exchange for speciality steel sector products whereas the second would be a portal for auto components which is expected to be online in the next ninety days. A separate company would be formed for the e-business venture.

Both ICICI and PwC are expected to equity partners in this venture although the capital structure is yet to be decided. Apart from this, the new venture would also look for more partners for providing technology, insurance, testing services and credit information. The new exchange is expected to provide a global Internet market place though the portal would be India-centric in the beginning.

Baba Kalyani, chairman of Kalyani Group, said, "The new market place would provide the reach that customers would require in the currently fragmented steel industry. This is likely to be the first business-to-business (B2B) product of its kind as all other steel exchanges have been only for commodity products.

The idea is to create a truly homogenous integrated market place."

As of now, the domestic speciality steel industry has a size of Rs 7,000-8,000 crore and the auto component industry in the country has a size of Rs 15,000 crore. As they would be catering to a huge market worldwide, the Kalyani Group and partners have set a budget of Rs 40-50 crore for aggregate expense on the e-business operations which includes large expenses on technology.

PwC has been looking for the technology partner and probable names include Ariba, CommerceOne and Oracle.

A revenue model has already been set for the e-exchange. Fees charged would include transaction, lead generation, membership, sponsorship, fulfilment and allied services fees. However, the fee structure has not yet been decided.

ICICI's role in the venture would be two fold. The first would be the provision of capital to the company and the second will be provision of credit to parties transacting on the exchange.