M&M enhances its global presence

02 February 2007

After the US and Africa, Mahindra and Mahindra is working in Europe to globalise its businesses, reports CNBC-TV18.

M&M's acquisitions of €95-million forging company Schoneweiss and 200 million Euro Jeco Holding are the latest examples of India Inc''s aggression of forging presence in the global market.  And it doesn't come easy. For instance, M&M had to deliberate for around two years to buy the 90-per cent stake in this 140 year-old-family owned Schoneweiss.

But the necessity to have a global presence in emerging markets and the dogged persussive efforts of Mahindra Systech, - M&M's autocomp division made Korte change his mind. And similar is the case with 120-year-old Jeco Holding, where M&M picked up 68-per cent stake.

M&M has a new interest in the European truck industry. Not that it has any plan of entering this market now but because 65 per cent of the production in Jeco is consumed by all the leading truck manufacturers here.

M&M now has a forging capacity of 315,000 tonnes. But it wants to move up the value chain. It plans to increase its presence in the castings business, which could be through a JV or technology transfer and also acquire an engineering serives firm, talks for which are underway.

The new forging companies could help Mahindra Forging achieve its target of becoming one of the top two forgers in India by 2012 and among the top 5 globally by 2015. And this will mean competing closely with Bharat Forge, which has set its sights on becoming the top forging company in the world.