Jaquar focused on expansion, upscaling facilities; lighting division to be ready by December 2019: Rajesh Mehra

Bengaluru: Jaquar Group, a well-known bath brand, is focused on expansion and upscaling existing facilities instead of acquisition plans, the company’s director and promoter Rajesh Mehra said on Tuesday. “We don’t have any acquisition plans as of now but we do have huge expansion plans of our own manufacturing units. Every year we are investing around $60 million to $70 million into our plants to upscale them or to add to our capacity,” Mehra told PTI. Elaborating on expansion plans, Mehra said the company has invested Rs 150 crore to build a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility for its lighting division, which will be ready by December end this year. Last year, Jaquar had expanded its facility for faucets with an investment of Rs 150 crore, which has a production capacity of 1.25 lakh faucets every day. [caption id=“attachment_6923171” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Rajesh Mehra. Picture courtesy: Twitter/Jaquar Group[/caption] However, Jaquar had acquired a sanitaryware manufacturing unit in Gujarat two years ago, which will be completely revamped, Mehra said. The company had acquired a plant in South Korea too. The group has a total area of manufacturing operation spread over 3,30,000 sq metres. The Jaquar group, which has concentrated its manufacturing facility around the national capital region (NCR), has no plans as of now to set up plants in South India. “We dont have any plans outside the NCR except for one plant we have in Gujarat, which is our sanitaryware plant where industries are localised in a big way,” Mehra said. The company which will celebrate its 60th anniversary next year intends to remain a family held business and has no plans to go public. “.. till now we have been able to meet all our expansion needs in terms of funds, in terms of revenues, through our own internal approvals. So, that’s why we don’t feel why we should go public or come up with some public issue. So, it is a completely family held or family managed company group. That gives us a lot of convenience, flexibility and base to manage our activities,” he said. The company has no immediate plans to go beyond bathroom and lighting solutions. “These two verticals are still very huge and big. For the next five years, we don’t need to look here and there and we want to keep our concentration on these two verticals,” Mehra said.