Escorts arm buys Polish firm

Escorts, the country's second largest tractor company, on Wednesday announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Escorts Agri Machinery Inc, USA, has acquired 100 per cent equity in Farmtrac Tractors Europe Sp.zo.o, a Polish company in which it already has a 64 per cent stake.

Escorts executives said the final tranch of the acquisition was for a very insignificant sum, possibly a little over half a million dollars.

In June 2000, Escorts initially had taken up 49 per cent stake in FTES, which was subsequently enhanced to 64 per cent in May 2003. FTES, which was earlier known as Pol-Mot Escorts Sp.zo.o, is a Polish company with share capital of $2 million and is located at Mragowo near Warsaw.

Rakesh Chopra, business head, Escorts Ltd, Agri Machinery Group, said: "Through the acquisition of our Polish JV, we intend to actively seek a larger market share for our Farmtrac tractors in European countries and further strengthen our brand equity in international markets in the times to come."

A release from the company added that the acquisition will enable Escorts to expand its European base, by increasing the reach of its Farmtrac range of tractors, with a deeper penetration into the Western European markets and fast growing African, Asian and Latin American markets.

The acquisition will also enable Escorts to target countries like Spain, Portugal, Austria, Germany, France, U.K. and Italy.

FTES has established a distribution network of 56 dealers in Poland and 10 distributors across key EU and Central European markets like Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, etc. Escorts currently enjoys a strong distribution network in USA, European, African and Asian markets.