Promit Mukherjee

Mumbai: Simplex Infrastructures Ltd, a diversified infrastructure player, is looking at entering oil & gas transmission and tunnelling business in the next financial year.

Amitabh Mundra, director, Simplex Infrastructures, said: “They are the two major areas being targeted for the next financial year.”

This will be in addition to its earlier announcements of venturing into real estate and mining sector.

Mundra said the company is currently working on the details and a decision in this regard will be taken in the next 8 to 9 months. By then, Simplex will also concretise its plans for real estate and mining.

“We have signed a few joint venture agreements to participate in real estate projects as joint developers. Through such agreements, we will not have to invest on the land side and will only be concerned with project designing and construction,” said Mundra.

He said, the company is currently looking at focusing on technology to get into mining business. Talks are for all these and will take some time to finalise, he said.

“Industrial construction is one activity which is the biggest contributor of revenues for the company,” said Mundra. But going forward, he said, activities such as construction of power plants, high-end buildings and urban infrastructure are going to be major revenue churners.

He said the company currently has an order book size of Rs 10,000 crore and its expected turnover for the year ending March 2008 is Rs 2,500 crore, which is one-fourth of the size of its order book.

“The size of our order book, coupled with an execution skill of 40 to 50 contracts on a yearly basis, reflects the strength of the company,” he said.

Mundra said Simplex, as part of its strategy to de-risk its business model, is focusing on shorter cycle projects and increase its presence across geographies.

Source : DNA