Wheels India plans Rs 72 capex, Rs 41 cr for windmill segment

"The fresh capex planned is Rs 72 crore. Some of that will start towards the end of this fiscal. About Rs 41 crore of that will be towards the windmill segment," Managing Director Srivats Ram told media here.

He said the company makes various components for the windmills, like parts for nacelle, tower and other parts.

"We supply components for big four non-Chinese windmill makers in the world like Siemens Gamesa, Vestas, Nordic and GE. We export the windmill components to North America, European Union, Brazil and China," Ram said.

Ram said one of the customers has a plant in China.

According to him, the company expects 20 per cent of its revenue from industrial components.

Wheels India recently commissioned its Rs 172 crore 7.5 lakh per annum cast aluminium wheel plant near here.

Queried about the wheels for electric vehicles, Ram said some electric vehicle makers have approached Wheels India in this regard.

"The electric vehicles need aluminium wheels. Our cast aluminium wheels can cater to that," he said.

As regards the demand from the commercial vehicle segment, Ram said the demand for intermediate commercial vehicles and tipper segments are showing growth.

However, the bus segment has been hit due to Covid-19 pandemic and it may pick up from the New Year onwards, he added.

"After the lockdown in March, we started running our plants at some level only towards the end of the first quarter. With the unlocking of the economy, we reached around 90 per cent of our pre-Covid production levels in September," Ram said.

He said the company closed the second quarter of the current fiscal with a net profit of Rs 7.43 crore as against Rs 28.67 crore logged during the corresponding period previous year.

These numbers are, however, not strictly comparable as the net profit of Q2 of the previous year had a onetime write back of a deferred tax liability of Rs 19.80 crore, he said.

Wheels India logged revenues of Rs 510.84 crore for the quarter ended September 30. The company had recorded revenues of Rs 595.63 crore in the same period last year.