Welspun targets $10-billion market capitalisation in 2 Years

The Welspun Group has interests in textiles, line pipes, flooring solutions, warehousing, roads, and oil and gas, and is laying out an expansion strategy for each of its businesses. The group is focusing on four major segments with an aim to build a robust business in each segment.

The Welspun Group aims to reach $10-billion market capitalisation, from the current value of $3 billion, in the next two to two-and-a-half years, the conglomerate's chairman BK Goenka said.

"Our target in the next two to two-and-a-half years is how we become three times our market cap and create wealth for our shareholders," Goenka told ET in an interview.

The Welspun Group has interests in textiles, line pipes, flooring solutions, warehousing, roads, and oil and gas, and is laying out an expansion strategy for each of its businesses.

The group is focusing on four major segments with an aim to build a robust business in each segment.

Its textile arm, Welspun India, is present in home products like flooring, home textiles and advanced textiles. The company wants to be a world leader in this category in the next three years. "We are clear in our mind. We see Spaces (the home textile brand) and Welspun on a solid path in times to come," said Goenka.

Welspun Corp, which houses Sintex and pipes, is aiming to be the building material company and oil and gas company.

"We will sell under the brand Sintex because already we have a distribution channel and we have a name that is synonymous with it. We have 10,000 dealers and 2,500 distributors and we can expand. So, with our credibility and our platform, I think, we can take it to the next level and we are bullish on this," Goenka said.

The company acquired water tanks and other plastic product maker Sintex-BAPL for ?1,251 crore this March. "The idea was to acquire Sintex Textiles but somehow, we got pipes and tanks which is also good for us because we are in the water business," said Goenka, adding Sintex is an iconic brand and has a huge brand recall.

Over the past few years, Sintex's market share has declined from 22% to 8%. Welspun is looking at rebuilding the brand and regaining the market share.

"We are reorganising the whole brand and marketing. We are putting three new plants in the northern, southern and eastern regions of the country. We are expanding the manufacturing capacity," he added.

To give a fillip to its steel business, Welspun Corp in 2021 acquired Welspun Steel (WSL), which is engaged in the manufacturing of BIS-certified steel billets and direct reduced iron, specialty steel and thermo-mechanical treatment bars.

The water business, which falls under Welspun Enterprise, is the third segment the firm is very bullish on. This August, Welspun Enterprises acquired a 50.1% stake in technology-based EPC firm Michigan Engineers for ?137.07 crore. Michigan Engineers is now its subsidiary.

Welspun Enterprises is betting big on the water and wastewater management business and expects threefold growth in the segment in the next 3 years from the current order book of over ?5,500 crore (as of June 2023).

It is also building its warehousing division with a pipeline of around 12 million square feet of warehousing in the next two to three years. "And I think in the next three to five years, we'll be at 25 million square feet of warehousing space. We see this as a sunrise industry," Goenka said.

-        economictimes