Moser Baer plans $800-mn capex for various biz

New Delhi: Moser Baer said it plans to invest over $800 million in capex for its various businesses including optical media and photovoltaics, over the next 18 months.

“For FY09, our capex plans stands at $550 million in capex across the Group. Of this, the capex for the optical media business would be limited, and will go into conversions from CD-DVD lines to Blu-ray lines (about $20 million). Close to $450 million is earmarked for the photovoltaic business, this fiscal,” Mr Ratul Puri, Executive Director of Moser Baer told reporters.

The company has already utilised nearly $275 million of the capex earmarked for the current fiscal, in the last seven months, Mr Puri said adding that the capex for the next year would also be similar ($550 million). This takes Moser Baer’s capex to over $800 million, for the coming 18 months.

He said that the company has secured lines of credit to the extent of $550-600 million for the photovoltaic expansion for this and next fiscal, while another Rs 1,600 crore (about $355 million) would come from a mix of cash available with the company, and cash to be generated from the blank optical business this fiscal.

Bulk of the capex would flow towards the photovoltaic capacity expansion straddling various technologies. “We will be growing the Crystalline Silicon photovoltaic capacity from 80 MW to over 300 MW, where as the thin-film capacity would rise from 40 MW to over 600 MW by the end of 2010. We will also be ramping up capacity for concentrator technology from 5 MW to 100MW,” Mr Puri added.

At present, the photovoltaic business accounts for seven per cent of the company’s revenue and the optical media business almost 80 per cent. The company also operates in home entertainment and consumer electronics & IT peripherals businesses.

The photovoltaic business has an order book of close to $1.4 billion, Mr Puri said adding that while some of the contracts were executable over the next 6-12 months, others were executable over the next four years.

It may be recalled that the company, earlier this month, announced it has secured orders worth $500 million to supply solar modules to two European solar system integrators Ralos Vertriebs and Colexon Energy.

“Today as far as the photovoltaic business is concerned, Europe and Japan are attractive markets. Even the US will massively increase the use of solar energy all across America. India too has a significant potential,” he said.

Asked about the listing plans for the photovoltaic business where the company recently announced it has raised over $93.5 million from a clutch of global investors including Nomura, CDC Group, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, IDFC PE and IDFC Mr Puri said, “We do not need to list the photovoltaic business to execute our expansion plans.

“If we do list, it would be for financing further growth and for establishing benchmark for the solar business. In the next 12 months, if we feel that the parent company is reflecting the value of the photovoltaic business, we may not list it immediately. However, we will have to list it eventually as we need to give an exit route to investors.”