The Kirloskar group, a leading pump manufacturing player in the country, is in talks with a mid-size company from overseas for acquisition."Discussions with the company are in an advanced stage," R K Srivastava, director, Kirloskar Brothers (KBL), said here today while refusing to divulge either the name or the size of the potential deal.The group, which registered a consolidated sales turnover of Rs 1,782 crore last year, is planning to double the pump manufacturing capacity across the range at its plants in India from the present level to meet the demand for the next five years while looking for inorganic growth opportunities outside India."We prefer overseas acquisition because they offer geographical and technological advantages. Also, we find good companies for a potential acquisition in those countries," Srivastava said. The company already has two manufacturing plants overseas, in the US and UK.The Kirloskar group has Rs 200 crore, which it received from the sale of Kirloskar Copland, which was into compressor manufacturing, to the company's technology partner in the US, at its disposal to spend on immediate acquisitions, according to Srivastava.Meanwhile, KBL is planning a capital expansion at Rs 155 crore during the current financial year and Rs 200 crore next year. These investments would go into setting up of plants within the existing ones and their capacity expansion.Among the new initiatives, the company is actively looking at becoming a major player in water management, covering urban water supply, sewerage management and irrigation water supply, by offering end-to-end solutions.It is looking to undertake BOOT (build, operate, own, transfer) projects in this area, according to Srivastava.In the large-scale lift irrigation pumping systems, the company is executing orders worth over Rs 4,000 crore in several states, which include projects worth Rs 2,500 crore in Andhra Pradesh.The company targets to reach a turnover of Rs 5,000 crore by 2010 and the Rs 12,000-crore mark by the year 2015.
