Trafalgar House Aims To Double Turnover By 2000

Trafalgar House Construc-tion (THCI), the Indian subsidiary of global ship building and engineering giant, Kvaerner, plans to double its turnover to Rs 500 crore by the year 2000.

Disclosing this, THCI managing director Pradeep Kapoor said that the increased turnover will come from new projects. The company is planning to bid for the construction of a port at Gopalpur in Orissa for which the state government has floated a tender on a build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) basis. Trafalgar has joined a consortium led by global major Marubeni for the project.

It also plans to bid for a number of projects for setting up Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminals in India. We are confident of bagging at least some of these projects, Kapoor said.

 

The company has also bid for setting up a marine terminal at Dahej in Gujarat. The tender had been floated by a consortium of companies led by Indian Petrochemicals Corporation. Trafalgar has envisaged an investment of Rs 350 crore in this venture.

The company also has drawn up plans for forward and backward integration for the Dahej project, thanks to its association with Kvaerner. We are hoping that it will be Kvaerners ships which bring in the LNG to Dahej. Besides, Kvaerner can also execute the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts for the power projects which will ultimately use LNG, Kapoor explained.

Trafalgar also plans to bid for the proposed LNG project at Ennore in Tamil Nadu. Meanwhile, the company is executing civil work contracts in various ports. These are the construction of a marine terminal for the copper project of Indo-Gulf Fertilisers at Dahej, an oil jetty for Iffco at Kandla and a cargo berth for the Tuticorin Port Trust. The Dahej, Kandla and Tuticorin projects are valued at Rs 100 crore, Rs 20 crore and Rs 40 crore respectively.

Trafalgar is also planning to invest about Rs 40 crore to upgrade its plant and machinery. It is also considering restructuring its capital base. We are considering a rights issue as well as a debt issue. However, we are wary of debt at this point as interest rates continue to be high, and we are not keen on increasing our interest burden further, Kapoor added. The company has a paid up share capital of Rs 2.56 crore.

Trafalgars net profit slid to Rs 1.67 crore for the nine months ended December, 1996 from Rs 5.02 crore for the year ended-March 31, 1996.

The companys borrowings also increased to Rs 22.38 crore from Rs 16.24 crore in the same period.

This has been attributed to the general slowdown in the economy and the liquidity crunch faced by corporates. The company has changed to the annual accounting year as the holding company of THCI was taken over by Kvaerner in 1996. Consequently, it has changed its auditors to Arthur Andersen from KPMG Peat Marwick. THCI will also be renamed as Kvaerner Construction India in 1998.

Kapoor expects the bearish phase to continue in 1997 but is bullish on 1998 and 1999.