LTL enters India; to buy 100% stake in power utilities electrical accessories firm

Sri Lanka’s largest power company, LTL Holdings last week inked a share Sale and Purchase Agreement with M/s Asiatic Electrical and Switchgear Ltd of India to acquire 100% ownership of the latter.

Asiatic Electrical and Switchgear Ltd  (AESL) is one of India’s largest manufacturers of wide range of electrical accessories for power utilities. Its product range includes Low Voltage Distribution Boards, Feeder Pillars, Service Cabinets, Low Voltage Cutouts, Fuse Switches, Lightening Arrestors, Expulsion fuse cutouts, Composite Insulators, High Voltage surge arrestors, Distribution feeder pillars, High Voltage VCB panel boards, High Voltage cutouts etc. All of AESL’s products have been tested as per latest IS, IEC and BS standards at Test labs such as CPRI-India, DEKRA/KEMA-Holland and KERI-Korea. AESL has two manufacturing facilities in New Delhi and Rajasthan.

  AESL has been a switchgear supplier since the early seventies. Today its major markets are in the Middle East and Africa. It has been a consistent supplier for power utilities in UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Kenya, Ethiopia and Oman. AESL is also a supplier of Feeder Pillars and Distribution Boxes to the Ceylon Electricity Board and a major supplier of power accessories for the 2022 FIFA world cup in Qatar. 

AESL founder and Chairman G S Kochar, who was in Colombo for the official signing ceremony said they have been inundated with orders from a host of customers for the last few years. He said to maintain this growth momentum AESL wanted a larger and stronger source of equity and said he has been extremely proud to see the transaction through. He said with the financial muscle of LTL, they will further expand the manufacturing facilities and said the company should be a global player in the High and Medium Voltage power accessories segment within the next decade. He said AESL would use the strong export marketing channels

LTL Holdings CEO U D Jayawardana said LTL had wanted to enter this field for long time. LTL was searching to find more lucrative bases to continue its growth momentum outside Sri Lanka since LTL’s growth within Sri Lanka has come to a standstill recently due to reasons beyond LTL’s control and AESL came in at a great valuation and was an obvious choice. 

“We have been the leader in the transformer business in Sri Lanka for 30 years. We now export more than 5000 transformers a year and the Sri Lankan market has become smaller and smaller. Therefore we wanted to strengthen our export markets further by introducing a brand already popular with utilities for accessories to supply a total solution for high and medium voltage distribution infrastructure, which will include LTL transformers also” said Jayawardana.  LTL currently employs more than 150 Sri Lankan engineers.

LTL is one of the largest companies in Sri Lanka with a Group managed turnover exceeding Rs. 40 billion and profits that exceed Rs. 10 billion. Its business is increasingly on a global footing. In addition to high tech transformers, LTL also produces High Voltage Steel Structures and has investments in thermal, wind and hydro power plants. It also has 100MW of thermal power plants in Bangladesh. It is a Joint Venture between CEB and employees of the company.