CRI Pumps setting up US, Mexican subsidiaries, plants

Coimbatore-headquartered fluid management solutions provider, CRI Pumps, has announced plans to set up wholly-owned subsidiaries in the US and Mexico. The company has hitherto been supplying its range of products in the US through distributors.

In an interview with TheHindu Business Line newspaper, Mr. G. Soundararajan, Vice-Chairman, CRI Group, said the company decided to set up its own assembly plant in the US and Mexico with a view to reducing the lead time from 120 days to less than 5.

“We have been working on this for close to a decade. We now have the necessary certifications – sanitation and food & safety standards – in place; in less than six months we will commence assembly of certain products in addition to supplying groundwater pumping system, waste water pumps, pressure boosting and industrial pumps. The facility will help enhance our technical and application support and cater to the new value added segments as well,” he informed.

The company’s products launched in these markets include specialised pumps for mining applications, chemical process pumps, industrial pumps with IoT (Internet of Things) enabled health monitoring systems and encapsulated submersible motors fitted with lightning arrestor – developed by the R&D division of the company for the first time in India.

The investment on the facilities at Houston in the US and Mexico is estimated at around $5-mn. The company is planning to establish one more facility in California in six months. “We will be investing more going forward,” revealed Mr. Soundararajan.

Aiming high

The company is targeting an annual turnover of $10-mn from these markets in the next three years. The group currently has facilities (wholly-owned subsidiaries) in Spain, Italy, Brazil, Turkey, China, South Africa and UAE.

CRI group achieved Rs. 2,100-crore business in the just-concluded fiscal. Income from international business is said to have accounted for 16 per cent of the total. It is aiming to more than double the turnover to Rs. 5,000-crore mark by 2022-23. “Around that time, our export turnover growth could be 50 per cent higher than the domestic growth. The potential is huge,” the Group’s Vice-Chairman said.