MUMBAI: India largest engineering company by sales L&T said on Wednesday it purchased British naval ships equipment maker Thalest for an undisclosed sum, a move which will help the Indian company to develop equipments for both naval and marine ships.
“Thalest and Servowatch will not only help in controlling ad automation space for marine applications, but also for other emerging segments,” said SC Bhargava, senior vice-president & head of L&T Electrical and Automation in a statement. On Wednesday, L&T shares were up 0.97% to R1,345.35 on BSE. Thalest is holding company of Serowatch Systems, Bond Instrumentation & Process Control and Servowatch. In 2008, L&T’s electrical and automation division had purchased the switchgear business of Malaysia-based Tamco Corporate Holdings for $107 million.
“The company is very serious in the defence space and is looking at making the defence segment one of the important contributors to its overall revenues,” says Manish Kayal, infrastructure analyst, Centrum Broking. Defence contribute anywhere between 3% and 4% of L&T revenues of around R50,000 crore.
“The opportunity in the defence space is huge for L&T, but the government is reluctant on private companies entering the security and defence area,” says Ankit Dabel, analyst, Pinc Research. “The company is already present in the ship building and automation space, so with this acquisition, the company has only added to its existing portfolio and will not have much of an impact on the stocks.”
On other hand, Servowatch supplies advanced integrated ship control systems, including alarm and monitoring, automation, platform management and bridge, navigation, communication and multimedia packages, for new build and retro-fit markets. Last week, L&T formed a consortium with Nexter Systems for three artillery gun programmes of the Indian Army.