Apollo Tyres to invest 400 mn euro on 2 plants in Europe, Brazil

Apollo Tyres Ltd. | Tyres & Allied | Automobiles | BSE: 500877 | NSE: APOLLOTYRE

12 Mar 2012 Evaluate

Apollo Tyres plans to invest around 400 million euro (over Rs 2,500 crore) to set up two new facilities in East Europe and Brazil in the next 3-4 years as it aims to expand its global footprint. The company, which currently has an European subsidiary -- Apollo Vredestein, is also keeping its options open to acquire a tyre firm in the Latin American market to commence its operations. The company is looking to start the plant with passenger car radial tyres with an initial capacity of 7-10 million units per year. The company has not finalised the location and capacity yet, but any such facility will require an investment of at least 150-200 million euro. Earlier in 2008, Apollo Tyres had planned to set up a plant in Hungary with an investment of 200 million euro and having a capacity of 25,000 units a month. However the company had to abort its plans due to local political issues.

Apollo Tyres has recently tied up with an European testing firm Evonik. The Indian firm tests its products at Evonik's centres for environment friendly parameters. The Indian entity also introduced a new brand -- Aspire 4G -- for the European market at the ongoing motor show. The company is targeting a revenue of USD 6 billion in the next five years from the current about USD 2 billion.