Larsen & Toubro, the country’s biggest engineering conglomerate, is bridging a ‘missing link’ in its portfolio. It is setting up a facility for manufacturing heavy-duty forgings. The initial investment for the unit would be to the tune of Rs150 crore.
Very few companies in the world make heavy-duty, single-piece forgings weighing 50-100 tonnes or more. L&T’s forgings division will be to heavy engineering sector, what Bharat Forge is to the automobile sector. L&T has so far depended on external vendors for heavy tonnage forgings. As a result, the forgings often took more time to be delivered than the rest of the equipment, which the company fabricated in-house. With an in-house forging unit, the company will be able to control its delivery schedules better and avoid project execution delays.
The conglomerate’s future plans include making Oman a manufacturing base, with capacities mirroring its massive Hazira complex. Oman currently helps it serve firms in the Middle East, besides the home-grown ONGC.
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Reliance Industries the country's largest private sector company is mulling an entry into the rig manufacturing business but the final decision is yet to be taken. The company plans to enter into rig manufacturing by the end of this year or the beginning of next year and is looking for a suitable partner for this business.
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Private equity firms invested about $3.3 billion across 97 deals in January March quarter 2008. The investment was higher compared to the same quarter a year ago, where it was $2.7 billion from 101 deals. However this investment was lower than the preceding quarter which saw 131 deals worth $5 billion.
The largest investment reported in the Jan March quarter 2008 was $ 395 million raised by Sofia Power Company, a part of India bulls group. Telecom continued to attract investor’s interest with KKR and Morgan Stanley investing in tower infrastructure firms like Bharti Infratel and Tower Vision. Other companies that raised $100 Million plus during the quarter were Cairn India and Ballarpur Paper Holdings amongst others.
Despite the turmoil in the global financial markets, PE investments during January to March 2008 registered growth over the corresponding period in 2007. This indicates that PE firms are still bullish on India story going ahead.
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