Forgings major Bharat Forge is believed to have acquired an 89% stake in French forgings company Groupe Sifcor (Society of Industrial and Financial Courcelles). The acquisition will give Bharat Forge an entry into the French automotive sector and access to big Sifcor clients like PSA Citroen and Renault. Groupe Sifcor had posted euro 172 million (about Rs 1,152 crore) revenues last year. Last week, news about a possible acquisition appeared in a French newspaper. However the company officials at this stage declined to comment on the same.
Groupe Sifcor has five manufacturing sites in Europe. It employs 1,280 people and spends 3% of its turnover on R&D. In 2007, the company produced 48,000 tonne of high-grade steel. Family-owned Groupe Sifcor was formed in the 1880s and is comprised of three subsidiaries for hot-die forging, warm extrusion and cast forgings.
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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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