Steer, a leading player in polymer processing machinery, has acquired Zheng Feng of China, a single screw pipeline manufacturer, to strengthen its position as a leading extruder designer and manufacturer.
This acquisition will provide Steer with enhanced manufacturing and assembling capacities to speed up time-to-market single screw, twin screw, and R&D extruders, said Mr Babu Padmanabhan, Managing Director.
Zheng Feng will be first production facility outside Steer’s base in Bangalore and is expected play a crucial role in the company’s growth. The new unit in China, a manufacturing base of leading international brands in the mobile phone to automobile sectors using engineered plastics, is also expected to aid Steer to achieve a 70 per cent rise in its turnover from Rs 60 crore. Zheng Feng’s annual capacity of 200 twin screw extruders a year amounts to about 20 per cent the global market.
Steer already has two application development centres in Japan and the US, to provide customer centric products to its major customers.
“Steer’s foray into China marks a turning point in the company’s growth. Its footprint in China opens the door to a wider global reach, as well as an opportunity to be a strong player in the Chinese market,” Mr Padmanabhan said.
He said being one of the largest producers of consumer durables, there is an immense demand for high-quality engineered plastics in China. Steer intends to address this requirement with its technology-driven application-based single screw, twin screw extruders, elements and peripherals.
While declining to give details of the price of the acquisition, Mr Babu, however, said the Chinese facility comes with assets of a strength of 60 in the trained human resource pool and the real estate for expanding its product profiles.
Source: The Hindu Businessline