Anand Group plans $150-million electric push


Anand Group plans $150-million electric push
The $1.5-billion diversified auto component major Anand Group is planning to invest over $100-150 million in future mobility business led by ventures in electric vehicle space. 
The group that runs over a dozen joint venture businesses successfully in India for over six decades is already scouting for acquisitions including partnerships in the UK, Europe, Israel, Japan, amongst other markets, to participate in the entire value chain of electric vehicles, right from battery, motors, charging system for two wheelers to cars. 
The group aims to be amongst the top 3 players in the country in the EV component segment and sees a business potential of half a billion dollars in the coming five years from this space. 
The group is in discussion with companies from the UK, Israel, Germany and Japan for an acquisition, alliance or a joint venture and its group president Sunil Kaul, who heads future mobility, has started meeting prospective partners around the world. 
"We are on the lookout for acquisitions and partnerships. We are in the middle of discussions with multiple companies, which will help us accelerate our penetration into the future mobility or clean mobility space," told Kaul, adding, "We are going all out to participate in the fast transition electric two and three-wheeler space. Hence, we are preparing ourselves by entering into partnerships, getting into engineering of parts, testing and also into sourcing - to generate a significant part of our total business going ahead." 
There will be at least four to five different companies, largely in the form of JV companies catering to future mobility space - right from motors, controllers, transmission system. "Our target is to generate $500 million worth of business from future mobility in the coming three to five years. By then the group turnover would have doubled to $3 billion, by 2026-2027," said Kaul.