United Dominion To Invest $2.4 M In India

United Dominion Industries (UDI), a US-based proprietary engineering products giant, plans to invest $2.4 million in India through its subsidiary Flair Corporation.

Flair, which deals in compressed air accessories segment, has established two joint ventures - Varun Flair Filtration in Jaipur and Puriflair India in Vadodra - holding a 76% stake in each. Sundar Mylavarapu, vice-president of Flair's India business unit, said that Indian operations would be used to manufacture the whole range of compressed air accessories to cater to the Asian region.

UDI plans to invest $30-50 million in India in the proprietary industrial goods segment in the next few years. "India's compressed air accessories market, which presently stands at $10 million, will touch $30 million by the year 2000 and UDI, with these two joint ventures, has already acquired a 35 per cent market share," Mylavarapu said.

 

25 per cent of the production from the two joint venture units would be exported through Flair India and the rest would be sold in the Indian market. Flair plans to tie up with Ingersoll Rand India, a leading compressor manufacturer. Ingersoll Rand is already selling the products of Flair worldwide.

Varun Flair Filtration, the first joint venture formed by the takeover of Varun India Ltd, will manufacture a variety of industrial and automotive filters.

The new venture will also produce Flair's Dollinger line of filter products including air in-take filters, air oil separators, oil mist eliminators, coalescing and particulate filters and panel filters applications.

Puriflair India, formed by acquiring Purif Air and Clean Air, will introduce a complete range of standard and custom engineered accessory equipment for compressed air, gas and liquid applications.