Sujana Receives BCCL Investment

Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL, India) announced it has acquired 6.5% of Sujana Universal Industries (India, publicly traded on the Bombay and Hyderabad exchanges). Sujana is a diversified manufacturer of bearings, appliances, precision machined components, and castings. The company also imports and exports directly, operating three manufacturing plants in Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh. Bearings are manufactured as an operation within the company's Light Engineering Components (LEC) division. Although bearing sales last year fell significantly short of expectations, the company said it, "is putting all its efforts to improve the performance during the current year of operations," and more than doubled profitability for the first half, ended December 31, 2005, despite a 2% drop in sales. Sujana, manufacturing bearings since 1994, now has capacity to produce more than 10 million bearings per year. The product line is kept within a narrow, focused band of 52 part numbers -- 16 tapered roller bearings and 36 ball bearings. The company recently landed contracts to supply Tata Steel with bearings under the Tata brand name. Going forward, Sujana said it plans to pare its primary operating attention to ball bearings, tapered roller bearings, automotive components, industrial castings, and domestic appliances. In 2006, Sujana's key product markets are expected to continue to be components for India's fast-growing auto manufacturing sector, and industrial castings.