At the 18th AGM held here on Monday chairperson Anu Aga said that she expected the present sluggish demand to be replaced in the next few years by increasing demand for clean energy and environment technologies which would give the company sustainable long-term business.

Business is expected to pick up only from the last quarter of the current financial year, the benefits of which could be seen only in the next financial year. Two EPC projects which Thermax is participating is likely to take off if the political situation stabilises. The sugar cogen project with a US company and IPP projects with Malaysian companies are worth around Rs 300 crore for Thermax. ``Financial closures of IPP projects are eluding us for a year and havetaken a toll in terms of flatter revenues and constrained earnings,'' Aga said.

Prospects for the current year are not expected to improve. There has been a 15 to 20 per cent drop in business during the first half of the current year. During 1998-99, the company's income was down to Rs 507.6 crore from previous year's Rs 530.1 crore. Profit dipped by 15 per cent to Rs 45.3 crore in the previous year to Rs 38.3 crore during 1998-99. The company is paying out a dividend of Rs 3.50 per share of Rs 10.

Expecting a strategic shift from industrial to commercial and infrastructure sectors, the company is looking closely at these markets. To enlarge and capture all the possible opportunities, the company is extending its product business to include the commercial sector comprising of hotels, hospitals and shopping malls. It is also going into service packages in areas of cogeneration, airconditioning, wastewater treatment, process cooling, recycling and product recovery from effluents.

Thermax is not keen onthe merger and acquisition route for growth. Thermax managing director Abhay Nalawade said that the company had received proposals for takeover of small to medium size cash-strapped companies. ``As the company has enough capacity, it is not taking the M&A route to add capacity,'' Nalawade said. He is pinning hopes on the revival signs in the cement and power industry which is likely to push the demand for cogen and captive power plants.