Amtek lines up $125 m for buying US component firms

Amtek Auto Ltd said it has lined up around $125 million primarily to acquire US auto component companies in the "coming three to six months". This comes in the wake of its series of acquisitions, the most recent being the UK-based JL French's (Witham) Ltd this week.

Apart from this, in the past few years it has taken over Aluminium Foundaries UK, Zielter, a turbo charger manufacturing company in Europe, GWK in the UK and Smith Jones in the US.

The company is in talks to buy US component companies to augment its forging and machining capacity. Till date, the company has 90 per cent of oversees revenues from the European market and is now gearing up to expand its presence in the US automobile market, one-third of the global market.

"We are expecting many more deals in the coming months. We are looking to buy companies in the US in the range of $50-500 million depending on our business requirements," said Mr Santosh Singhi, Director, Finance, Amtek Auto Ltd.

At present, the company has presence in the ring gear segment in the US with over 50 per cent of the US market share and 35 per cent of the global market, said Mr Singhi.

In the domestic market, Amtek Auto would be investing about Rs 100 crore in capacity expansion and new facilities in Pune, Dharuhera, Baddi and Bhiwadi over the coming three months. It is also increasing its forging capacity to 2,80,000 tonnes from 100,000 tonnes, machining capacity to 30 million from 15 million and casting capacity to 175 tonnes from 75 tonnes over the coming six months.

The Rs 1,100-crore Amtek Auto Ltd is part of the Rs 4,000-crore Amtek Group. At present, Rs 2,000 crore revenue of the Group is accrued from the overseas market, while the remaining comes from its domestic operations, including exports worth Rs 500 crore.

(Source: Hindu Business Line)