Minda Industries Ltd (MIL), a leading global manufacturer and supplier of proprietary automotive solutions, has announced that it has entered into a Joint Venture agreement with FRIWO AG Germany, a leading international manufacturer of innovative power supply units and e-drive solutions, to combine their manufacturing prowess and technical expertise to manufacture and supply various electric vehicle components in Indian subcontinent.
Minda Industries will hold a majority stake of 50.1% in the joint venture entity. The company expects a surge in two wheel electric vehicles over next 5-6 years in India. While joint venture plans to incur capex of~ Rs 390 Crore over a period of next 6 years to support such growth in India, the outlay in initial two years would be around Rs 160 Crore. Minda Industries plans to invest Rs 71 Crores in one or more tranches as equity investment to partly fund the above expenditure. The remaining funding requirement will be met through mix of internal accruals, equity investment and debt.
The Board has also approved investment of Euro 15 million in FRIWO AG via a capital increase in order to strengthen the industrial partnership between the two groups. The planned transaction and the capital measure is subject to the regulatory approvals including Reserve Bank of India.
Mr. Nirmal K Minda, CMD, Uno Minda Group says, “Electrification will play an important role in the transformation of the mobility industry and presents major opportunities to entire mobility ecosystem. We are delighted to partner with FRIWO to expand our product capabilities to serve such rising EV opportunities. By combining our technologies and production capabilities, we can create a true leader in the rapidly growing e-vehicles market. Partnership has been forged at opportune time where EV Industry is on the cusp of growth trajectory facilitated by favorable government policy and incentives. We are confident to play a key catalyst role in electric vehicle revolution and sustainable mobility in India.”
Rolf Schwirz, CEO of FRIWO comments, “This Joint Venture is a great opportunity for FRIWO to facilitate its expertise and innovation driven e-mobility business. The Joint Venture will have a distinct product portfolio with shared facilities, sophisticated, but also market proven technology, high quality and engineering standards from both FRIWO and UNO MINDA, at optimized costs to the customers’ benefit. This winning combination will enable the Joint Venture to successfully establish a leading position in the two and three-wheeler electric vehicles markets in India, as well as unlock the potential of other markets”.
Unique position in the dynamically growing Indian e-mobility market
The Joint Venture will combine manufacturing & technology expertise of UNO MINDA and FRIWO’s long term experience in providing sophisticated e-mobility solutions to manufacture and market e-drive solutions for electrical two-and three wheelers in India. As a result, the combined entity will be able to offer full line e-drive-solutions for the Indian market, combining extremely robust hardware and an outstanding software architecture.
The joint venture will help the company to further strengthen EV product portfolio and accelerate development and manufacturing of various EV components in India to fulfil increasing client requirements and to offer high-quality customized e-solutions in record speed.
The Indian markets promise high growth rates facilitated by governmental initiatives such as the FAME II (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India) Scheme and PLI that offers incentives to customers, OEMs and auto component manufactures for an electric two-or three wheelers.
