M&M to spend Rs7,500cr on new plant, products

Mahindra & Mahindra, India's largest utility vehicle maker by sales, said on Thursday that it would spend Rs5,000 crore over the next three years on product development and capacity enhancement, including setting up a new plant.

It has earmarked another Rs2,500 crore on acquisitions over this period, Pawan Goenka, president of the Mahindra group's flagship automotive arm, said in a conference call while announcing the company's earnings for the quarter ended March.

Net profits rose about 44 per cent to Rs870 crore against Rs606 crore in the year-ago period. This bottom-line performance however incorporates an exceptional gain of Rs108 crore, Goenka said in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

"The current growth projection for the tractor segment for this financial year is 5-6 per cent, which is about half of last year. I must admit that the tractor industry right now is going through a struggle, where in the month of April and perhaps in May we will see a negative growth and this will continue for the [current] quarter.

''We should start seeing a turnaround in the second half of the year. Even to achieve 5-6 per cent growth will take lot of effort from tractor manufacturers," he said.

Having acquired bankrupt South Korean utility vehicle Ssangyong a couple of years back, M&M has lined up a range of products for launch this year.