Hinduja bets big on Africa; to invest $1 bn in automotive, oil, chemicals, trading & infrastructure sectors

MUMBAI: Hinduja Group has identified Africa as its next big frontier for growth and has committed to pump in $1 billion across sectors over the next five years.

Calling for a unified Africa plan to fast-track the development of the continent, the automobile-to-financial services conglomerate plans to expand its business across the African region, especially in automotive, oil, chemicals, trading and infrastructure sectors, Hinduja Group Europe Chairman Prakash Hinduja said here on Tuesday.

“Africa is the future market for us. A continent of vast size and population, as large as India, is going to be our next frontier. We have significant expansion plans in Africa and will be investing $1 billion over the next five years,” the group’s Europe chairman added.

He said the group nets $300-400 million from the continent and after this investment “we expect our income to be around $2 billion over the next five years.”

For the mid-term, Hinduja said this ‘Go Africa’ strategy will have the group’s flagship Ashok Leyland more than doubling its bus as well as truck exports to the continent from the present 12,000 units per annum to over 25,000 units over the next three years.

“Ashok Leyland has exported around 12,000 vehicles over the past three years. Exports contribute 15 per cent to the turnover and it is set to increase to 33% over next three years. A significant part of this growth is expected to come from the Africa,” Hinduja said.

On investment, he was quick to add that these investments will be phased in a such manner that is suited to these countries' own development, saying “we will pump in this money across three different time horizons — short, mid and long-term.”

When asked about the whether it will be export led or manufacturing, he said the strategy will be to approach the continent by having anchoring hubs in each of the four geographical zones.

“For instance, our anchor hub in Kenya will serve East Africa; Nigeria, West Africa; North Africa will be served by our Egyptian hub and we would shortly finalise one for South,” Hinduja added.

“Different states in Africa are at different stages of political and economic evolution. Mapping these evolutionary trends, our investments in the continent would be staggered”.

The England-based group is present across various countries in sectors like automobiles, infrastructure, banking, energy, technology as well as healthcare.

Its flagship brand Ashok Leyland is the second largest bus and truck maker in the country.