By IANS,
Chennai : The Pune-based Eaton Power Quality Pvt. Ltd, the country arm of the $13 billion Eaton Corp of the US, wants to expand in India through acquisition, a top company official said here Wednesday.
“If there is a strong business case, we are even open for a joint venture with an Indian company, with us owning the controlling stake,” Deepak Sharma, managing director and general manager for SAARC and South East Asia region, told IANS.
Currently, it is looking to buy a suitable company, with a minimum turnover of Rs.500 million, that manufactures low and medium voltage switchgear electrical products, he said.
For Eaton Power, an acquisition is part of Eaton Corp’s growth strategy, Sharma said. As a corporate policy, Eaton group companies try to grow by at least 4 percent through acquisitions, he added.
“Money is not an issue for us if the match is suitable,” Sharma said.
In the medium and low voltage products segment, Eaton Power competes with the likes of ABB, Siemens, Crompton Greaves, L&T and Schneider, among others.
Sharma is confident of logging good sales growth for the company’s power backup business – uninterrupted power systems (UPS) – from the telecom, information technology (IT) and IT enabled services (ITES) and process industries.
“As per one estimate, around 60,000 more cell phone towers will be installed in India and these need battery power back-up systems,” he said. “IT and ITEs units will also need them for their data centres, as will other process industries.”
Sharma said Eaton’s power back-up systems had found a good market in Tamil Nadu’s spinning industry.
Eaton Power sources 40 kva and 160 kva UPS units from an Indian vendor; uits less than 40 kva or over 160 kva are imported from China, Europe or the US.