Toshiba Corporation increases stake in UEM India to 80%

MUMBAI: Toshiba Corporation has increased its stake in UEM India Pvt Ltd, an international water services company based in Noida, to 80 per cent, the Japanese company said on Wednesday.

Two people involved in the deal said Toshiba spent a little over .`400 crore to buy 54 per cent stake in UEM from promoter Krishnan Kshetry and private equity investor India Value Fund Advisors (IVFA), valuing the company at about .`750 crore. The Japanese firm had bought 26 per cent stake in March last year.

Kshetry and IVFA will remain invested in the company as minority shareholders.

Toshiba has appointed Koichi Matsui as chairperson and managing director of UEM, the company said in its release.

"Water treatment is a strategic growth area for Toshiba, and UEM is a highly respected player in the water treatment business with vast experience in delivering complex, turnkey projects around the world," said Hirofumi Yoshino, vice president, water& environmental systems division, at Toshiba Corporation.


After Toshiba acquired 26 per cent strategic stake in March 2014,UEM won some additional orders for water and wastewater treatment plants from Japanese companies in India and other clients abroad by leveraging synergies with Toshiba.

"Strategic control in UEM will enable Toshiba to bring in synergies with its other businesses and enable UEM to become one of the global leaders in water and waste water management business," Yoshino said.

Vishal Nevatia, managing partner at IVFA, said, "Over the last one year, India Value Fund Advisors has had a good working relationship with Toshiba on overseeing the business and we believe that Toshiba is a great partner who can take UEM to the next level of becoming a global leader in water treatment."

Toshiba has been Japan's leading manufacturer of electrical system for water supply and sewerage facilities for over 40 years.

UEM Group is an international multi-disciplinary environmentalservices company that specialises in providing turnkey services in water and wastewater collection, treatment and disposal facilities. It has executed projects in over 30 countries across Asia, North America, Central America and Africa.

India has more than 16 per cent of the world's population, but only 2.4 per cent of the world's land area and 4 per cent of its renewable water resources. Meeting water demands under conditions of limited resources is increasingly a big challenge.

A CII presentation had said that the water segment has high growth potential in the country.

Involvement in public private partnership (PPP) model with the state utilities, urban local bodies for water supply and distribution had business potential of around $1,750 billion, while setting up of water treatment plants, sewage and effluent treatment plant has a business potential of around $1,303 billion, it had said.