Hinduja Group flagship company, Ashok Leyland Ltd on Tuesday said it had made a strategic investment in Germany-based group firm Albonair GmbH for developing vehicle emission treatment systems and products. The company said it would invest Rs 600 crore in the recently formed joint venture with Nissan Motor Company Ltd for light commercial vehicle business in India and may consider selling a certain percentage of the stake in the Nissan JV to the its
shareholders.
Talking to mediapersons on the sidelines of an analysts? conference here, K Sridharan, chief financial officer of Ashok Leyland, said, ?We are looking at the prospect of shareholder participation in the Nissan joint venture by giving them some sort of entitlement in it.?
?We may offer Ashok Leyland shareholders certain percentage in the JV, details of which are yet to be decided,? he said.
In May, 2008, Ashok Leyland signed agreement with Japanese Nissan Motor Company for setting up three joint venture companies for vehicle manufacturing, powertrain manufacturing and technology development for an aggregate investment of around Rs 2,300 crore. ?We plan to list these JV companies,? said Shridharan. He did not give a timeframe for the listing.
On the investment in Albonair, Shridharan, said, ?We have got the people and identified the product.? He, however, did not divulge the investment figure. In a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the company said, ?Ashok Leyland has made a strategic investment in Albonair GmbH for development of vehicle emission treatment or control systems and products.?
Albonair is part of the Hinduja Group and an associate company of Ashok Leyland located at Dortmund in Germany. It is the central hub for research and development, and also caters to the requirements of emerging markets to conduct local customer application development for vehicle and engine manufacturers, as per information available on the German firm’s website. Ashok Leyland sees its non-cyclic business including engines, exports, spare parts, bus and defence share to rise from 32% to 45% above in the next two years. The shares of Ashok Leyland closed at Rs 33.05 on Tuesday on the BSE, up 0.92%.
