Simplex to pick up stakes in port, allied projects

Construction company Simplex Concrete Piles is planning to pick up stake in port and related projects.

"This part of the company's plans to move up the value chain. This is what happened in Japan in the seventies, in Korea in the eighties and Malaysia in the nineties. We are in talks to pick up a stake in two such projects," Amitabh Das Mundhra, director of Simplex Concrete Piles, said.

Mundhra, however, declined to reveal any names citing confidentiality reasons. It is learnt that the company will pick up stakes ranging around 10 per cent.

Apart from ports, the company is also keen on picking up stakes in port-related activities such as container terminals.

Simplex has been mainly a civil contractor with some experience as an EPC contractor. It now has ambitious plans to become a major player in EPC and also emerge as a project developer.

Simplex clocked a turnover o around Rs 580 crore in 2002-03 and has targeted between Rs 650 and Rs 700 crore this fiscal.

Simplex at present offers comprehensive services in power projects, industrial structures, marine structures, roads, bridges, jetties, and cooling towers.

Company executives say that it has experience in over 100 power plants, 15 steel plants, 24 petrochemical an chemical plants besides over 100 flyovers an bridges.

The company, which has a public holding of about 40 per cent, is listed on the Bombay, Chennai, Jaipur, Kolkata and Delhi exchanges. It will be listed soon on the NSE.