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Caparo Engineering India Private Limited, a subsidiary of Caparo Group founded by NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul, has acquired assets of Steel Tubes of India Limited, a Dewas-based company near Indore with an annual turnover of Rs 200 crores (Rs 2 billion).
Announcing this in London on Wednesday, Angad Paul, Chief Executive of the Caparo Group, said his company planned to modernise and expand the operations at Dewas and would significantly increase the tube making capacity from 50,000 tonnes to 100,000 tonnes per annum.
The new business, located close to Caparo's stamping plant at Pithampur, would be known as Caparo Tubes India.
Besides, Caparo has signed a joint venture agreement with Japan's Marubeni Itochu Steel Industries to manufacture Tailor Welded Blanks at a new Caparo factory in Bawal, in Haryana.
Angad Paul who signed the agreement with Tsunekatsu Yonezawa, president of MISI in Tokyo, recently said the new company would be known as Caparo MISI.
Tailor Welded Blanks are used in the manufacture of automotive body, door and roof panels. The factory would be the first of its kind in India and would be operational by July next year.
"The joint venture with MISI and the acquisition of STI demonstrates Caparo's ongoing commitment to use new technology in the development of new products and processes and in the modernization of traditional manufacturing industries," Angad Paul said.
Caparo, a $1.5 billion multinational with business interests in aluminium and steel processing and vehicle structural components, is a leading manufacturer of electric-resistant welded tube and hollow sections with seven Bull Moose manufacturing facilities in the USA and two operations in the UK.
World-wide, Caparo produces one million tonnes of tube, structural hollow sections and merchant bar per year.
"Caparo's proven technical excellence in tube making will ensure that Caparo Tubes India will have the skills and technology to offer the very highest standards of ERW tubing required by the global automotive industry," Angad Paul, under whose leadership the Group has rapidly expanded its manufacturing facilities in India, said.
The group has emerged as a major supplier to the growing Indian automotive sector.
Caparo's development in India started in 1994 with a joint venture with India's largest car manufacturer, Maruti Udyog Limited.
The company known as Caparo Maruti Limited manufactures automotive body panels at its facility in Gurgaon in Haryana.
The success of the plant has been followed by the building of a second stamping facility at Bawal in Haryana and in Halol in Gujarat.
In 2002, Caparo Enginering India Private Limited built its first stamping plant at Pithampur in Madhya Pradesh.
Today Caparo has expanded its business with stamping plants at Greater Noida and Halol and a fastener manufacturing unit in Chopanki (Rajasthan). An Axle and Suspension Systems manufacturing facility is also being developed at Halol and the Pithampur plant is being expanded o produce Long Member Pressings.
"In addition Caparo is investing in a consolidated 120 acre site at Chennai in Tamil Nadu. Facilities include an
Aluminium Foundry, Steel Forge, Automotive Stamping Plant and a Research and Development Centre incorporating a tool and die design and manufacturing plant.
They are planned to come on stream in 2007.
"Two more stamping plants at Pune and Jamshedpur are under construction and are also green field site developments," Angad Paul said.
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