Punj Lloyd's subsidiary takes over Singapore-based SembE

Mumbai, June 2 (UNI) Punj Lloyd's wholly-owned subsidiary in Singapore has acquired a majority stake of 88 per cent in SembCorp Engineers&Constructors (SembE&C), a leading utilities and marine group in Asia -- for Singapore dollar 35.2 million.

Announcing the acquisition, the company said the remaining 12 per cent stake would be acquired by the subsidiary, Punj Lloyd, on or before December 31, next year. The acquisition is in-line with the company's intent to expand its geographical reach and portfolio enhancement in complementary sectors.

Punj Lloyd already has a formidable presence in South Asia, Middle East, Asia Pacific, Caspian and Africa. With this acquisition, its operations will expand to Europe and China, besides Iran and other SE Asian market, by leveraging the opportunities.

The company will also add airports, jetties, MRT/LRT, tunneling, sewerage amongst others, to its capabilities in infrastructure domain.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Corporate Finance, Singapore acted as advisors to the company on this transaction.

''This acquisition will substantially enhance the group's capabilities to tap into complementary growth sectors like infrastructure and petrochemicals. We will also greatly benefit from the experienced and quality manpower as this acquisition will add a very large number of experienced and qualified engineers to our existing talent pool,'' company's Chairman and Managing Director Atul Punj said.

SembE&C, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SembCorp Industries (SCI), is a design-and-build engineering and construction service provider with core capabilities encompassing process and plant engineering, heavy civil engineering and building. It has recorded revenue of over one billion Singapore dollar for the year ending December, 2005.

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