Electrolux Kelvinator Ltd (EKL), the Indian arm of the $2 billion Sweden-based AB Electrolux white goods giant, expects to clock profits from 2005. The company also expects to phase out the name Kelvinator in two years.
Addressing the launch of the Tamil talking washing machine in Chennai, Rajeev Karwal, CEO and managing director, said, “We expect to make profits in next two years as we are undergoing a restructuring and rightsizing of the company”.
The current equity capital of EKL is around Rs.176 crore and the turnover was about Rs 485 crore during the calendar 2002.
EKL has registered a draft of the offer letter to Sebi on 3 December. The company’s proposed Rs 200 crore rights issue has been hanging fire for almost a year now owing to allegations by minority shareholders in relation to a previous merger scheme.
“The company has responded to all the clarifications that Sebi had asked and now a decision is awaited from Sebi,” a source close to the deal said.
“The company had downsized to 1,550 employees from 3,600 through a voluntary retirement scheme this year. We shut down the refrigerator manufacturing facility in Nandalur unit at Andhra Pradesh four months ago,” he said.
Karwal added, “The brand name of Electrolux Kelvinator, which is still in the low-end of the refrigerator segment, will slowly be phased out and all the products will carry only the brand name Electrolux. We will be introducing 20 new models across the various segments in the first half of 2004 and will be spending around Rs.8 crore on our product generation plans.”
Karwal said that they would be launching “˜Electrolux’ brand of airconditioners by February with a complete range of window airconditioners and split airconditioners.
“We are looking at setting up the manufacturing capacity of air conditioners in a excise free state and expect to set it up at Uttaranchal at an investment of 2.5 crore. We will be shifting our research and development facility from Butibori to a northern state and would be scaling the it up to a 38 member team from the present 28 member,” he said.
EKL has a manufacturing capacity of 7,50,000 of refrigerators in Warora in Maharastha and Shahjahanpur in Rajasthan.
From Business Standard