Kone Elevators: The accelerated climb

10 April 2006

Venkatachari Jagannathan looks at the growth of one of the earliest Finnish investments in India, the Chennai-based Kone Elevators.

Chennai: In March this year A Sankarakrishnan, managing director, Kone Elevators India Private Limited played host to the Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanen. With a justifiable pride he showed his guest around the South East Asia's largest elevator plant to the prime minister.

One of the earliest Finnish investments in India, the Rs258 crore turnover Kone Elevators, then called Beacon Kone Limited, was started as a joint venture between Kone Corporation and Best and Crompton Engineering Limited as.

The initial years were difficult; in 1992, the company's turnover was just Rs10 crore while the accumulated losses were Rs14 crore. It was then that Kone Corporation infused Rs7 crore into the company and also bought out Best and Crompton's stake.

Ever since then it has been a smooth upward climb for the Kone Elevators. In 2001 the company established a global software centre to develop embedded system software for lift applications.

The year 2004 turned out to be a landmark year for the Kone Elevators. The company, through its subsidiary Tiger Elevators Private Limited, took over the 5,000-unit elevator maintenance portfolio of Bharat Bijilee Limited, which makes the Olympus brand of lifts, for Rs33 crore.