ICICI Venture part funds Electrotherm expansion

Ahmedabad, Mar 20 (UNI) ICICI Venture Funds Management Ltd with an investment of Rs 82 crore in Electrotherm (I) would be part funding our second phase of expansion costing Rs 400 crore, Chairman&Managing Director of Electrotherm Shailesh Bhandari said.

Addressing mediapersons here today, Mr Bhandari said that ICICI Venture would be getting Rs 82 crore worth of equity (14.9 per cent) of the company while the promoters would bring in Rs 58 crore to meet the equity portion. Term loans would be Rs 200 crore while internal accruals at Rs 60 crore would meet the balance, he said.

The term loans have been sanctioned and disbursed and the compnay has already invested Rs 300 crore out of the Rs 400 crore, Mr Bhandari said.

Electrotherm Indian Ltd has set up a special steel production plant in Kutch. This plant has facilities to produce steel products, stainless stell products, ductile iron pipes and other engineered and farbricated items. With its core strength in power electronics, the company through its inhouse R&D facilities has developed a battery operated scooter, he said.

In the battery operated scooters segment, after the overwhelming response from the consumers the scooters are now available all over the country, Naveen Nakra, Director (Strategic Planning&Projects), Electrotherm added.

The company is now ramping up its manufacturing capacity and building strong partnerships with vendors to roll out more than 1.5 lakhs vehicles next year, Mr Nakra said.

For the above facilites, the company had embarked on a capital investment plan of Rs 530 crore in two phases. The first phase of Rs 130 crore was implemented in a record time by term loans and accruals, he said.

''Our turnover in 2004-05 was Rs 60 crore three years ago. Today it is 345 crore. The turnover is expected to reach Rs 650 crore by year ending March 2007. Gujarat has a good investment climate. The 125 crore Kutch project is case in point,'' Mr Nakra added.

Jayanta Banarjee, director, of ICICI Venture said ''we looked at Electrotherm and found it an interesting option. It has solid foundation in induction technology and it is good in two fields - steel making and battery operated electric scooters. Our share in equity would be 14.9 per cent.'' UNI VNB MJ AW1701