Hindustan Aeronautics and its French partner Safran will soon invest about Rs.170 crore to acquire a defunct state-owned company in Goa.
The acquired company’s land assets will be used to set up a unit for servicing military helicopter engines.
HAL and Safran, an aircraft engines manufacturer, had recently said they would form a venture for maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of helicopter engines used in the country as well as those from other countries.
HAL's Chairman and Managing Director T. Suvarna Raju told The Hindu that the 50:50 entity would be put in place around October, with each partner contributing a capital of Rs.25 crore as per a shareholders’ agreement.
The new company would acquire the land and assets of Goa Auto Accessories Ltd in Honda Sattari, about 40 km from Panaji in north Goa.
The Goa government had shut down the loss-making GAAL in March 2014 and put it on sale last year. “We were trying to acquire a facility for our MRO and this was readily available for us to start functioning [quickly]," Mr. Raju said, adding that it was advantageous to have an engines OEM as a partner in the venture. “It will improve the average turnaround of engines, which means that one can make many helicopters ready for the Armed Forces. It would also make it smoother to source components and spares currently imported from Safran.”
He added the venture would service “hundreds of engines that were either purchased from Safran or produced at HAL.”
