Thermax looks to buy up to $100 million industrial waste water treatment company

MUMBAI: Thermax is scouting overseas to buy a company worth up to $100 million in industrial waste water treatment space, said Managing Director MS Unnikrishnan. "Our target market for water treatment projects in India is worth 4,000-4,500 crore. Within this, the industrial waste water market would be worth around 1,500 crore. So we would like to acquire a company for technology," Unnikrishnan told ET.

The company has a technology tie-ups with GE Water for sewage treatment and Wehrle Umwelt GmbH for industrial waste water treatment.

Thermax's water and waste water business portfolio offers treatment and recycling solutions for industrial, commercial, defence, hospitality, and municipal sectors. The engineering and capital goods company owns 8% of the water business market, analysts said. Thermax's consolidated orderbook was worth 6,446 crore as on March 31 against 5,966 crore a year ago.

The company makes products and provides services for industrial heating and cooling, waste heat recovery, captive power units, water treatment and recycling, waste management, and performance chemicals. "We have a cash reserve of 733 crore, so financing the acquisition would not be difficult," Unnikrishnan said.

Besides the investment on the planned acquisition, Thermax will spend 400 crore on capital expenditure in 2011-12. "We would be spending 200 crore on Thermax standalone entity and another 200 crore on our joint venture with Babcock-Wilcox," Unnikrishnan said. Thermax, jointly with Babcock-Wilcox of US, is developing a 825-crore plant for manufacturing super critical boilers. The unit is expected to start operations by September 2012.