Fielding a range of questions at the annual general body meeting of the shareholders on Wednesday, Srivats Ram, Chairman and Managing Director, said that the company was planning a CapEx of around Rs.
300 crore this year. That would go towards tractor, wind mill, hydraulics cylinders and air-suspension segments.
He said that the company would like to grow its construction equipment and agri tractor businesses globally.
“The company has a leadership position in the construction equipment segment and we wouldlike to achieve that in the agri tractor segment as well globally,” he said.
“We continue to invest in the alloy wheels segment and will strive for higher volumes in the coming years,” Srivats said on the prospects in the alloy wheels segment.
Srivats was positive of growth in the component businesses catering to the wind mill industry this year. He said that the business grew by 14% last year, driven by new businesses from offshore.“We are likely to see growth both in India and overseas markets. In addition, we continue to invest in and grow the business of machining of large castings for this sector,” he said.
The company’s subsidiary, WIL Car Wheels Ltd., saw decent growth and improved its profitability on the basis of increased volumes, higher capacity utilization and operational cost improvements.
He struck a note of caution citing inflation concerns on commodity prices due to the West Asia crisis but was hopeful of the prices stabilizing as the year progressed.
Answering another shareholder’s question on the growth strategy, Srivats said, “We are looking to ramp up machining of large castings. The cast aluminum business is on a low base currently and we have been able to get new businesses from a number of Indian OEMs. We should be able to ramp up this business this year. Hydraulic cylinder is a small business at the moment but has the potential to grow quite a bit and we are looking at expanding this business. Air-suspension has grown well last year and we are hopeful of continuing the growth momentum in this segment.”
On new products, he said that the company had introduced around 250 new products.
On overall prospects, he said that he was confident of growing the business this year.
Wheels India registered a net profit of Rs. 139 crore last year on a revenue of Rs. 5,124 crore.
Wheels India is a leading manufacturer of wheels for trucks, agricultural tractors, passenger vehicles and construction equipment; air suspension systems for trucks and buses; and industrial components for the construction and windmill industry with manufacturing plants in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra,Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Andhra Pradesh.
