Speaking to reporters after announcing its purchase of Scania Metrolink premium buses from Scania Commercial Vehicles India today, A Afzal, chairman and managing director, said, “We are in talks with PE firms to raise around Rs 250 crore, which would be invested in the business in the next three years.”
The discussions were in the initial stage. It had not take a decision on how much stake it would will be diluting, he added.
The company will buy 50 buses from Scania in the next two years.
It would be looking at attracting more foreign tourists for sight seeing.
The company has around 1,350 vehicles, and three major verticals of operation – tours and travels, inter-state and inter-city long distance services (point-to-point) and staff transportation services to multinational companies.
The vehicle strength include around 300 high end buses and over 800 buses deployed for staff commutation services of various companies, he added.
The fund raising would be towards setting up of more signature offices, a concept in which the company would have large offices which has passenger sitting lounge, cafeteria and the ticketing would be done, in various parts of South India. At present it has around five such Signature offices and plans are to open over 60 such offices in future, said Afzal.
He said of the total business, around 60 per cent is contributed by the staff commutation service business, while around 20 per cent is from point to point service and the rest from the other businesses. The company is looking at extending its inter-state service from Chennai to Mumbai, which would be a 22 hour journey. The availability of tickets in short notice is the attraction for inter-city and inter-state bus services compared to the train or airline services, he added.
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The current size of the company is around Rs 400 crore, growing at 9 per cent while the industry growth is at three to four per cent, said one of the Directors of Parveen Travels Pvt Ltd. The company was founded in 1967 by late Haji Janab Allah Baksh and was incorporated in the year 2000, starting with two tourist taxi.
The intercity operation serves around 600 destinations and witness over 10 lakh passengers a year. The first bus service using Scania bus will be between Chennai and Kochi, added the company officials.