Consistent growth in next few years: Mather & Platt Pumps

Ravindra Bhatia, Managing Director of Mather and Platt Pumps says that he sees a considerable and consistent growth coming in the next few years. He adds that only few manufacturers around the globe can match the product line that Mather & Platt has. He hopes that they will be seeing consistent growth in the years to come - both in the domestic as well as the export markets.

Excerpts from CNBC - TV18’s exclusive interview with Ravindra Bhatia:

Q: Is that correct - 13% is what institutions hold at the moment?

A: Yes, more or less.

Q: How much can FIIs go up to?

A: As far as we are concerned the promoter company holds roughly about 62% and balance is with the public and financial institutions and that keeps changing.

Q: What is the permitted amount? Is it 24% or do you have a Board approval to take FII holding to a larger stake or is it 24%?

A: Very frankly I don’t see any limit on that in the sense that the balance that is not held by the promoters is with the public and the financial institutions.

Q: Your company became WILO company after your Indian promoters sold their stake in 2004, how has that changed your market?

A: With WILO coming in our earlier promoters were into diverse fields but now it is exclusively a pump company. We are part of a pump group so that has brought in customers confidence into our company.WILO is financially very strong and that again gives lot of confidence specially to the infrastructure projects where we are dealing with larger customers. We also have WILO subsidiaries in 42 countries who will be going around selling our products so that has changed quite a bit for us.

Q: What is your order book like at the moment?

A: In rupee terms it should be somewhere in the range of Rs 100 crore plus.

Q: Could you take us through the kind of expansion you have seen on the export side of your turnover because that has ramped up considerably in CY06. What is the kind of growth target that you are keeping for the export side of the business?

A: That should be growing at the rate of roughly 35-40% every year for the next few years to come.

Q: At this point in time is there a defined outlay that you have laid out in terms of expansion plans? Do you require any funds and is there any expansion plan that you require to fund?

A: We have expansion plans and the funds are required for that but given the financial strength of WILO that is not the issue at all. It will be coming from the parent company itself.

Q: So you are not going to be looking at any time in the near future of placing a stake or looking at any kind of placement with an FII. Have you been approached by any FII considering the holding in your company is quite significant?

A: All the options are open. We will be considering every option but no such offer has been made by any FII to us.

Q: A quick take on how you see exports to domestic sales growing in the next two years?

A: Our products go to infrastructure. We see a considerable and consistent growth coming in the next few years. Easy figure could be in the range of 35-40% and this will be uniform in domestic as well as export markets because the product line that Mather and Platt has very few manufacturers around the globe have that. We will be seeing consistent growth in the years to come both in domestic as well as in export markets.