Polyhose buys construction gear unit

Chennai-headquartered Polyhose, a leading manufacturer of high-pressure thermo-plastic hoses and abrasives, has bought Ashok Leyland John Deere Construction Equipment joint venture’s manufacturing facility at Gummidipoondi near Chennai for an undisclosed sum. “We did this deal last week and have bought the entire 50-acre site along with building, plant and machinery,” N Suryanarayanan, Chief Financial Officer, Polyhose Group, said. The Gummidipoondi facility of Ashok Leyland John Deere joint venture stopped operations almost a year back as the former decided to focus on its core business – medium and heavy commercial vehicles – and exit from unrelated diversifications that were not doing well. The acquisition also marks Polyhose’s diversification into manufacture of hydraulic attachment products and accessories for farm and construction equipment. “We are presently tooling up the entire facility to start manufacture of hydraulic attachments and we hope to commence operations in about 90 days,” he said. The factory is expected to employ about 200 people and it will increase the strength to about 500 over a period of time. The company sees favourable growth opportunities for hydraulic accessories both in domestic and overseas markets. Polyhose has an ongoing decade-long partnership with Caterpillar. The company has been supplying hydraulic hoses to Caterpillar’s facilities across the globe.