Hope to exceed Rs 710 cr in revenues: Electrotherm

Managing Director of Electrotherm India , Mukesh Bhandari says, this year, the company is likely to cross about Rs 710 crore in terms of revenues, out of which about 15% would come from electric vehicle division, which should go up to 25% next year.

Going forward, the company is looking at launching a high capacity bus soon.  

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18's exclusive interview with Mukesh Bhandari:

Q: Division-wise, breakdown the performance? What sort of order book are you sitting on at this point in time?

A: We are comfortable with order book. We have three divisions. The steel division is selling products on a day-to-day basis and we are projecting sales of about 1,50,000 units next year i.e. April 2007 to March 2008.

Q: What is the revenue percentage breakup between your equipment, automotive and steel division?

A: This year, we are likely to cross about Rs 710 crore, out of which about 15% is coming from electric vehicle division and this should go up to 25% next year. The rest is from steel and engineering project divisions.

Q: You have planned a fair amount of capex. You are looking to get into scooter business and then, as we understand, even launch a battery fuelled three-wheeler. So what are your total capex plans? How much investment it would require and would it require raising any funds or dilution as a result?

A: In phase one, we have invested close to Rs 440 crore and in phase two, we are investing about Rs 300 crore more and this will be done by next year. We are increasing our electric two-wheeler capacity from a 100,000 per year to 200,000 per year.

We are installing an electric three-wheeler capacity of about 50,000. We will also be putting up a small plant to manufacture hybrid electric buses, so with this, we will have a substantial growth next year.

Q: How are you going about funding this Rs 740 crore? Is it essentially debt or have you looked to dilute some equity from the company’s front as well?

A: So far, we have taken some debt and have diluted our equity a little. Further, we are raising about Rs 200 crore through private equity placement.

So about Rs 270 crore will be through equity and Rs 30 crore will be through accruals. So we will be generating Rs 300 crore through equity placement and accruals.

Q: What sort of performance you have seen by YoBykes?

A: We believe we will be able to sell about 50,000 vehicles by March 2007 and I think we should be close to that number. We will definitely cross about 40,000 vehicles.