Mainis of ‘Reva’ fame bag deal for Eurofighter, Airbus parts

In one of the largest aerospace outsourcing contracts awarded to a mid-sized Indian firm, Maini Global Aerospace (MGA), a group company of the Bangalore-based Rs200- crore group Maini Precision Products, has bagged a multi-million dollar contract from German engine maker MTU Aero-Engines to make components for Eurofighter Typhoon and Airbus planes.

The engineering group, best known as maker of Reva, the country's first ever electric passenger car, will develop engine components for multi-role combat aircraft Eurofighter Typhoon and next generation A380 and A320 planes of Europe's Airbus, the world's largest aircraft maker. The deal will be signed during the Bangalore Air Show (Aero India 2011) which takes off on 9 February.

"With the commercial aero-engine market expected to generate about $740 billion sales over the next 20 years, we are now looking forward to growing the relationship with MTU on a strategic level," said Naresh Palta, chief executive, Maini Aerospace.

"The group will invest around $30-40 million in the next four to five years to scale up its infrastructure and capacity," said Palta, who was earlier an executive director at public sector major Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). Last year, the group bagged an outsourcing contract worth up to $10 million from Marshall Aerospace, subcontractors for Boeing, the chief American rival of Airbus.

The multi-year contract now positions the Mainis as strategic suppliers to the German major that has total revenues of $ 3.5 billion and partners with aero-engine manufacturers such as GE, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce to source aero-engine components.

"For them this is the India test, to see whether private industry in India can actually deliver as per German standards," said Gautam Maini, managing director, Maini Precision, who led the aerospace foray for the group even as younger brother Chetan Maini made waves with Reva. "Aerospace is going to be a big market in five to eight years. The business cycle ranges between seven and eight years. It was a quantum shift, something we had to believe for a long-term," says Maini.