The Hindu Business Line : WS Ind to put up Rs 100-cr greenfield plant

Plans ahead
PPC Insulators will help market abroad the products of WSI's new and existing plants; WSI will also market PPC's products in India.

Under the pact, PPC Insulators will not set up a manufacturing unit in India, and WSI will not set up a plant in the West.

MR MURALI VENKATRAMAN (right), Vice-Chairman, WS Industries (India) Ltd, and Mr Narayan Sethuramon, Managing Director, WS Industries (India) Ltd, at a press conference in Chennai on Tuesday. - Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai , June 27

WS Industries (India) Ltd (WSI) intends to put up a Rs 100-crore greenfield plant to produce 8,000 tonnes of insulators. The plant will be put up with "strategic technology and marketing alliance" with PPC Insulators of the US.

The new plant will be fully operational by April 2008 and will expand WSI's current capacity by 60 per cent, the company's Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Murali Venkatraman, told a press conference here.

The new plant will make WSI the 5th largest electrical insulator manufacturer in the world, Mr Narayan Sethuramon, Managing Director of the company, said.

PPC Insulators will help market abroad the products of WSI's new and existing plants. WSI will also market PPC's products in India. Under the arrangement, PPC Insulators will not set up a manufacturing unit in India, and WSI will not set up a plant in the West. PPC will provide technical expertise to WSI in plant design and process specifications.

Scouting for sites

The company is scouting for sites in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. The new plant will be put up with a debt-equity of 1:1. The recent acquisition of 14.9 per cent stake in WSI by Schroder Credit Renaissance Fund, for Rs 21.2 crore, through an issue of shares on preferential basis, has come in handy for funding the new project.

Funds will also come from sale of equity in a subsidiary company of WSI, WS Electric, which is jointly developing an information technology park in Chennai with The Chatterjee Group of Kolkata.

The first phase of the 1.4 million sq ft IT park will be ready by June 2008.

WSI has contributed 14.02 acres of land as its share for the IT park, while the The Chatterjee Group will bear the construction cost.

WSI will also be spending Rs 15 crore in expanding the capacity of its Chennai plant from 14,000 tonnes a year to 16,000 tonnes. With this expansion, likely to be fully completed by December 2007, and the greenfield plant, the company's capacity will go up to 24,000 tonnes of insulators a year.

The company plans to use the new plant to tap the growing Chinese and African markets. Exports, which now contributed to nearly 40 per cent of revenues, would grow with the expanded capacity, Mr Venkatraman said.

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