Hinduja Foundries, a part of the business conglomerate Hinduja Group, is scouting for overseas acquisition, a top company official said today.
The Chennai-based company was aggressively looking for an overseas partner in 2007 but later suspended it due to the impact of global the meltdown in the subsequent year.
"Now we are looking at opportunities in Latin America, and in Europe. We have not discontinued our efforts towards acquisition," Hinduja Foundries' newly-appointed Managing Director B Swaminathan told reporters here.
The company is in "talks" with three companies -- one in Latin America and two in Europe, he said.
He declined to elaborate on the proposed acquisition but said that would "double" their revenues.
The company plans to make an investment of Rs 70 crore for technology upgradation and capacity utilisation, he said after the company's annual board meeting.
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The company has so far invested close to Rs 231 crore at its Sriperumbudur facility. It also has two plants -- one each at Ennore and Hyderabad --with a cumulative production capacity of 1,43,000 tonne of grey iron casting and 3,000 tonne of aluminium gravity die-casting.
"The investment would help the company to increase its capacity to 1,68,000 tonne in a period of 18-20 months. Of the proposed investments, significant portions would go to Ennore plant. We are putting new (assembly) line there...," Swaminathan said.
Stating that they were "encouraged" by many auto-companies expanding their operations in the country, he said, "our plan was to produce 200,000 tonne. Right now our first milestone is to touch 1,68,000 tonne."
On contribution by exports, Hinduja Foundries CFO V Sankar said they planned to increase its contribution to 15% on the total revenues.
"Currently, the contribution from exports is very minimal. We want it to increase to 15%," Sankar said.
The company registered a net profit of Rs 2.08 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2011, a slump of 69.7% from Rs 6.77 crore in the corresponding period last year.
He said the dip in their net profits was mainly due to the "long term wage agreement" it had signed with the employees in February 2011.
For the year ended March 31, 2011, the net profit's jumped to Rs 7.47 crore from Rs 0.35 lakh last year mainly due to the provision for taxation, he added.
The net sales of the company for the fourth quarter grew to Rs 152.10 crore from Rs 113.73 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.
For the year ending March 31, 2011, the net sales soared by 41% to Rs 551.16 crore from Rs 391.54 crore registered during the same period of previous year.