Usha Martin managing director Rajeev Jhawar (right) with vice-chairman Prashant Jhawar in Calcutta. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, May 7: Usha Martin, the world?s second-largest wire and wire rope manufacturer, is on the prowl.

The company is planning to acquire distribution and manufacturing outfits in the US and Europe .

Vice-chairman Prashant Jhawar said the company has identified some target companies. ?We are conducting due diligence on a distribution company,? Jhawar told The Telegraph.

However, the company was yet to home in on any manufacturing outfit, he added.

He said funding the acquisitions would not be a problem as the company has a healthy debt-equity ratio. ?We can stump up $25 million if required,? he added.

Usha Martin is setting up a manufacturing plant in the US for wire and wire rope. It will start operations by the end of this year.

The company has facilities in Thailand, the UAE and the UK, apart from India.

It has plans to expand in the UK through acquisitions. However, the expansion will be for wire and wire ropes. The company plans to produce speciality steel in India only.

Usha Martin is now a fully integrated company, with not only wire, wire rope and cable facilities but also coal and iron ore mines.

The company has taken up a Rs 466-crore expansion plan to feed the growing demand of the engineering and automobile sectors .

The company is investing Rs 400 crore to raise speciality steel making capacity to half-a-million tonnes from 340,000 mt, apart from expanding wire and wire rope facilities.

It also plans to expand the speciality steel capacity to 1 million tonnes.

Captive mining of coal and iron ore will give the company a competitive edge over others as its raw material cost will come down from an average of Rs 2,500 a tonne to Rs 1,000 a tonne.

This will provide additional benefit of close to Rs 120 crore.