With the economy looking up, especially the construction activities, the offtake for the company's product should witness a decent jump, thereby resulting in a decent improvement in the bottomline.

The company has already initiated plans to consolidate its position in the market by going in for acquisitions in the form of strategic partners, which will not only increase the company's reach, but will also boost the company's bottomline. Havell's has identified a few companies in the south for acquisition and the deal is expected to be finalised soon. This would help the company increase its market share and its presence in the southern markets as well.

Recently, the company's promoters went in for creeping acquisition of shares from the market and hiked their stake by 2 per cent. They plan to further take it up by 5 per cent, from the current level of 47 per cent to 52 per cent. The company has an equity base of Rs 4.89 crore, of which 47 per cent is held by the Indian promoters, 17 per cent by the German promoter Gyer AG and the remaining 36 per cent is with public. The creeping acquisition by the promoters out of their own funds shows their commitments.

Havell's India, post acquisition, is targeting a turnover of Rs 150 crore in the next two years. The group is increasingly looking at the high growth southern market, especially Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, to increase its market share. The company is part of the Delhi-based Rs 200-crore electrical engineering group has eight manufacturing plants in and around Delhi and has a series of joint ventures with leading international players. It has joint ventures with the Electrium Group of the UK for the production of switchboards and with Geyer of Germany for the production of circuit-breakers.

Apart from MCBs, the company also makes cables and electricity meters for state electricity boards (SEB) and has already tied up with a few SEBs for supply of electrical meters.

On the financial front, the company has been a consistent performer. For the third quarter ended December 1999, the company reported a 33 per cent jump in net profit. Turnover for the third quarter improved from Rs 22.10 crore to Rs 27.44 crore and net profit from Rs 99.34 lakh to Rs 133.67 lakh. Turnover for the nine months ended December at Rs 7302 lakh was up from Rs 5982 lakh in the corresponding period of last year. Net profit during the nine-month period improved from Rs 206.3 lakh to Rs 283.2 lakh. The nine-month net profit has already surpassed the full year profit achieved in 1998-99. This, however, was achieved on a slower rise in turnover, which has been possible because of the improvement in the margins.

But the financials are set to undergo a major change in the coming times as the acquisitions would help company economise its operations and increase its revenues.

The company's business has been divided into four major operational areas-Switchgear, control gear, meter and cable division. The switchgear division consists of miniature circuit breaker (MCB), distribution boards, residual current circuit breakers (RCCB), high rupturing capacity (HRC) fuses and fuse holders and isolators. The controlgear segment includes contractors, overload relays, pneumatic timers, direct on-line motor starters and automatic star delta starters.

For most of these ventures, the company has already tied up with world leaders for technical assistance. For MCBs, the company has a technical collaboration with Geyer AG of Germany, with Schiele Industriewerke of Germany for RCCBs and with Peterriens Schaltechnik Gmbh for changeover switches.

--Sanjay Sardana