BackMaini Group expects Rs1,000 crore turnover in 3 years, bets on aerospace
Maini Group expects its currently small aerospace and electric buggy divisions to account for a larger share of overall revenue
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Bengaluru: The Maini Group of companies, the creator of India’s first electric car Reva, expect to earn Rs600-650 crore in turnover this year and aim to hit the Rs1,000 crore mark in three years, a top executive said.
Maini, which is into various businesses ranging from automobiles to logistics, expects its currently small aerospace and electric buggy divisions to account for a larger share of that overall revenue pie going ahead.
The Bengaluru-headquartered group, which makes and supplies high-precision components and assemblies, is opening a new aerospace plant that will be ready by August. Once complete, the plant should be capable of doing business to the tune of Rs250 crore, group chairman Sandeep Kumar Maini said in an interview.
“Presently our aerospace business is done in the same plant where we do our auto business. But now we are in the next phase of expansion and are creating a separate plant for aerospace and are going to expand our auto business in the older plant," he added. Both the automobile and aerospace businesses fall under Maini Precision Products, which is expected to contribute roughly 75% of the Maini Group’s total revenue this year.
Aerospace accounts for 10-12% of Maini Precision Products’ revenue, with the remaining coming from its automobile business. The aerospace division’s contribution is expected to increase to 30% in five years.
Analysts say the Indian government’s Udan scheme, which aims to connect big cities with smaller towns via air, should have a positive impact on companies in the travel, hospitality and related sectors, Mint reported last month. But the success of the scheme will depend on proper implementation and traffic demand/load factors.
Kumar Maini expects the government’s plans to work in its favour not just in its precision products sub-firm but its materials movement division too. Under Maini Materials Movement, it makes machines that help in handling and storage—for instance, machines that help load or unload goods—and electric buggies.
The group’s electric buggies, which currently account for 30% of that sub-firm’s revenue, are used in various spaces—from the hospitality sector to airports, hospitals to schools and gated communities to even a zoo.
Contribution from the buggies should increase going ahead as additional airports are built in the country, including in tier II cities, and especially as the government plans to make all new airports green, Kumar Maini said. “We’re in the businesses of the next decade—aerospace, electric mobility, warehousing and logistics," he added.
Despite earning a significant portion of its revenue from supplying high-precision auto components, the group is perhaps best known for Reva. And while it sold that business to Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd in 2010, electric mobility has always been a key area for the Maini brothers who run the various firms in the group.
To that effect, the brothers—including Chetan Maini who spearheaded the creation of the Reva—recently began a new venture called Virya Mobility. This new firm will look at creating or helping to create systems and processes that are going to enhance electric mobility in the future, such as setting up battery stations.
“The idea is that the consumer will be able to buy an electric car at equal to the price he or she buys a normal car of that segment but will be able to run it at a price far lower than that (normal car) without the three major challenges that they today see—range anxiety, ease and convenience, and cheaper cost (of running it)," Kumar Maini said.
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