David Brown, Bharat Forge Venture Targets Indias Industrial Sector

Gear manufacturer David Brown Group is forming a joint venture with India’s Bharat Forge to produce gearboxes and other provide aftermarket services to India’s power, mining, defense, wind, rail and steel industries. According to the shareholders’ agreement, David Brown Systems India (Holdings) Ltd. and BF Infrastructure Ventures Ltd. (BFIVL) will be 50-50 partners in the venture that is due to start assembling and testing new gearboxes by the middle of 2012. B. N. Kalyani, chairman and managing director of Bharat Forge, said: “Aligned with Kalyani Group’s strategy to diversify into non-auto business sectors and also to enter into equipment manufacturing this joint venture is one more step in the direction of reiterating our strong commitment to providing world class technology to the fastest growing core infrastructure market in India.” Bharat Forge is the flagship company of the Kalyani Group, an Indian multinational company with subsidiaries manufacturing forged and machined components for automotive and non-automotive industrial customers. The venture — David Brown Bharat Forge Gear Systems India Ltd. — will begin operations this year from current Bharat Forge plants in India. But, it will have two new service centers in operation by the end of this year, in Bangalore and Kolkata. More service centers will be established by 2013 in Delhi and Hyderabad to provide quick aftermarket service and support to industrial customers. David Brown manufactures gear products and offers gear design and services from six plants in the U.K., South Africa, China, Australia, France, and the U.SA. The joint venture aims to leverage Bharat Forge’s manufacturing and operational capability, sales network, and brand reputation in Indian and global markets, along with David Brown’s reputation for gear manufacturing. “This is an extremely exciting development in David Brown’s growth strategy,” stated David Brown chairman Jim McColl. “We recognize India is a high-growth territory for gearing products and services and so we are delighted to have found such a well-respected and prominent partner in BFIVL.”