After losing out to its bigger rival Mahindra & Mahindra in the race to acquire South Korea?s SUV maker SsangYong Motors, Kolkata-based Ruia Group has set up a special team solely dedicated to identifying new markets overseas for strategic acquisitions in the Southeast Asian belt.
Apart from that, the company is also looking to raise money through the IPO route in a bid to expand businesses across verticals. Outlining the overall group plans, chairman of the Ruia Group Pawan K Ruia told FE that the company was still scouting for opportunities and aimed to enter the OEM space as well.?
?SsangYong is what we call a value buy. The company could have been bought for about $500 million and turned around fast as well. It would have been a strategic buy for us and given us a strong footprint in the OEM space,? said Ruia. He added that in line with the group?s ambition it had set its eyes on making more acquisitions to become an end-to-end automotive player with operations across components and OEMs. In fact, the South Korean embassy has also got in touch with the group with a list of Korean companies that would be up for sale. Interestingly, the group that also owns the once iconic tyre maker Dunlop has charted a new brand strategy to turn around the company. According to Ruia the company is aiming to enter into sports merchandising on the lines of Dunlop group global. ?We have a plan to start merchandising of Dunlop branded sports products. For instance, manufacturing Dunlop branded tennis racquets and balls,? he said. He, however, added that the group could take another year or two for the final board clearance.
Just last month, Dunlop management had announced termination of services of its workforce at its Sahaganj factory in West Bengal. The notice was issued at a time when the senior management of the group were away in Bangkok for a board meeting. However, the decision was soon revoked owing to protests from workers and Ruia?s personal intervention.
Last week, the group had announced the acquisition of two auto component firms ? Turkish Standard Profil AS and German Meteor Gummiwerke KH Badje GmbH and Co. Total combined turnover of the two companies is more than R2,500 crore.