Hinduja Foundries Ltd, part of Hinduja group, is planning to invest around Rs 70 crore for capacity optimisation and technology upgradation at its existing facilities, during the current fiscal. The company is also scouting for acquisition overseas, with one company in Latin America and two in Eastern Europe on its radar, according to its senior executives.
The company is planning to bring in balancing equipments for the existing plants to provide value addition to its products. "We are expanding capacity and some of the investment would also go into technology upgradation and balancing the production capabilities in the existing units," said B Swaminathan, managing director, Hinduja Foundries.
The company would increase its capacity by 22,000 tonne from current 146,000 tonne of gross production to 168,000 tonne in next 18 -20 months, he added.
It would increase the capacity in Ennore unit from 60,000 MT to 68,000 MT and the unit at the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT), in Chennai, from 50,000 tonne to 72,000 tonne.
The company would source the investment from debt and equity, though the quantum of each has not been decided yet, said V Sankar, chief financial officer, Hinduja Foundries. Today, the company's board in principle approved capital raising in tune of Rs 125 crore, though the mode of raising money has not been decided, he added.
The company has been aggressively looking at an acquisition in overseas from 2007-08, said Swaminathan. "We are scouting for acquisition in overseas. We are looking at three companies, one in Latin America and two in Eastern Europe. Post acquisition, our topline will be double," he said.
The two companies, which are on its acquisition radar in Eastern Europe are almost the same size of the company. However, the primary focus of the company would be in scaling up production in India, he added. It expects an increase in exports to Western Europe and the total exports would grow up to 15 per cent by next year.
