NRB Bearings fully focused on executing new growth strategy

Time of India

2 days ago

Harshbeena Zaveri
is absolutely confident that the stage is set for her company to grow from strength to strength in the coming years.
'Now that we have resolved the family settlement and completed the demerger of our industrial company, we are fully focused on executing our growth strategy,' the Vice Chairperson and Managing Director of the Mumbai-headquartered
NRB Bearings
told ETAuto.
From her point of view, the ₹1,500 crore component maker's strength lies in its ability to engineer product disruptive innovation, to be able to partner with the world's finest automotive and Tier one entities and truly launch the next generation platforms by doing the friction solutions for them.
'We are talking about Magna, Dana, ZF, Meritor, BorgWarner and many other companies with a particular focus on EV agnostic applications,' she elaborated. That means 'we have specifically focused our company on to the next generation platform of, for example, an electronic app cell for the chassis, e-steering applications and all the other non-engine electronic innovations where the same platform is going to be used, whether it's hybrid, ICE or e-mobility'.
According to Zaveri, the way the business has been firewalled for the truck and car and also going forward, the tractor market, is that 'we will be there' with the same or a higher portfolio of business, whether it's ICE, EV, or hybrid.
Risk mitigation strategy
'And that is one of our strengths because we place a lot of focus on our strategy which is really about risk mitigation. So, I don't want to sit here and predict the future and say EV is coming in such and such year, ICE is going to die in this year or hybrid is going to prevail over EV,' she clarified.
On the contrary, NRB would just want to be as deeply entrenched and as sticky with its customers, irrespective of which of the three technologies prevail and what kind of timeframe it takes and for all the years that they coexist.
When it comes to two-wheelers, the bearings manufacturer is strongly focused on the higher end and large volume EV players. At the same time, continued Zaveri, there would be a differentiation between low end EV for two-wheelers and high-performance bikes.
So while 'you might lose a little bit of business' in the midsize vehicle as it moves into becoming more EV and more lower end, there will also be a huge opportunity in the 250-300cc, 350cc and then maybe 500cc which is going to slowly replace and attract the performance customers.
'And that also gives us more than enough opportunity for engineering design capabilities and complex bearings and more bearings,' she explained.
Industrial mobility
The other important focus area is industrial mobility, which is off highway and more and more agricultural applications. Right now, NRB is in a very strong position globally in the truck market. 'If you see at the consolidated level 30 per cent of our business comes from overseas. So, the 70:30 is a very strong risk mitigated model. These are predominantly European companies,' said Zaveri.
NRB also supplies into global defense which may be niche but is highly profitable. It also caters to agriculture and those two business segments together are approximately 11 to 14 per cent of total sales. Summing up, the CV business and two wheelers are about 30 per cent each, replacement market 14 per cent and the rest is the passenger vehicle market.
We now have all the technology and capabilities to make spherical roller bearings, taper roller bearings, to make larger sizes and expand our cylindrical bearing businessHarshbeena Zaveri
NRB has now got the top ten global customers but still remains 'very under-penetrated' there. 'We have ₹500 crore of future business already tied as nominations and starting to play out, which we have to supply over the next four years,' explained Zaveri. This is the reason why NRB has earmarked a ₹200 crore investment plan.
'So, you are talking about ₹110 crore of current capacity per month, which will be improved with operational excellence, overlapping and going to about ₹115 crore when the new capacity starts coming in slowly step by step starting from next year,' she explained.
And adding another approximately ₹175 crore because ₹30-40 crore of the ₹200 crore will be put into infrastructure. 'This is because we will require much larger buildings and more sustainable plants where we need them to be more solar-friendly and reduce the carbon footprint,' said Zaveri.
Flexible approach to investments
NRB's debt equity is 0.1 and, 'even with all these investments', is not going to move beyond 0.3. This translates into a 'very healthy' situation where investments can be made very flexibly, keeping in mind all the changes in the world as opposed to companies that already have a lot of capacity.
'We now have all the technology and capabilities to make spherical roller bearings, taper roller bearings, to make larger sizes and expand our cylindrical bearing business,' she added.
As for new geographies, NRB is in the process of closing in on the US for a facility which could be either in North or South Carolina. The next transition would 'definitely be' setting up research, development, and application engineering capabilities in the US and in Germany.
'We still do not have a very large footprint in the US yet because we were hinging that on a Make-in-USA strategy. So that means we are very protected even from the current tariff conversations,' said Zaveri.
We built so much stock because all these two-wheeler companies agree to come back to us and buy from usHarshbeena Zaveri
Deep domain training
All the company's sales team members are in the international business side and application engineers have had deep domain training in the engineering centre before being moved overseas. 'We also have international employees and consultants who are strong in those fields and are considering looking at setting up R&D facilities both in Europe and America,' she said.
NRB's focus over the next three years is going to be revenue and profitability, revenue growth and sustainable profitability at 19 per cent plus and 'really stretching our revenue growth from 12 per cent annually, taking it to 14 per cent and then crossing 17 per cent per annum'. As Zaveri put it, scaling up is going to be the entire focus over the next three to five years.
According to her, the company had been consistently delivering an extremely strong and aggressive performance for years. However, recently, growth slowed down – 'a major factor not widely known'. A big fire at the Waluj facility, Aurangabad, in 2023 damaged one line completely as well as the stores.
Rebuilding Waluj after the fire
'Our immediate focus shifted to restoring production lines and rebuilding inventory. At the same time, we engaged in a thorough due diligence process with our insurance company, given the high quality of our insurance coverage,' said Zaveri.
With the family settlement also underway then, this created some misunderstandings in the market. 'Most people mistook the slow growth as a failure on NRB's part while being unaware of the major issue, the backdrop of the fire. Additionally, we limited our investor communications and reluctant to discuss the family situation in the larger scheme of things,' she added.
There was some confusion because a land sale in Thane, Maharashtra, brought in a large chunk of cash, around ₹170 crore, which was an exceptional gain. Subsequently, when the fire broke out, it led to a slowdown.
'We had insurance money coming in and we had this final payout of ₹55 crore for the company settlement which was an exceptional loss. In the last two financial years, there was exceptional gain yet people reported that the company was not having adequate profitability,' explained the NRB chief.
Manufacturing line hit
Just as the recovery from COVID was happening, the company was restructured but then the fire struck. and the manufacturing line directly hit was actually for that business plan of approximately ₹80 crore.
'The two-wheeler industry really grew and we lost about ₹90 crore because for four months our stores got impacted and we had to rebuild the stock. We built so much stock because all these two-wheeler companies agree to come back to us and buy from us,' said Zaveri.
This is because they also wanted NRB to risk mitigate the lines by duplicating capacities and building adequate stock for safety. Stock reduction has also happened as everything is in place now and the money that tied up in working capital is also getting released. 'We have virtually no debt and have as much money as we want to invest in the future strategy,' she added.
Today, the company's production capacities are around ₹Rs 110 crore per month and the business is all coming back to normal. 'And actually, from January onwards we got our whole production capacity back in and we have moved to a consolidated growth of 14 per cent and a very strong profitability of 20 per cent plus,' says a visibly pleased Zaveri.
Correcting misconceptions
She also drives home another important point. Post-COVID, all the international entities were put into a holding company. According to her, people are comparing standalone numbers of the past to those of the present whereas 'you must compare the standalone of the past to the consolidated results of the present'.
Hence, when people look at this, they think that the company has gone into low growth and a lot of interest waned off even in terms of the industry per se without realising this was due to the fire.
'Despite the potential to expand aggressively in the industrial market, as a trustee, I was bound by principle, not to compete. This created a paradox – while I wanted to push growth at the company level, I was constrained by my responsibilities on the trust side,' said Zaveri.
The fire clearly complicated matters in terms of the NRB growth story. The de-promoteriation process is on but as part of the settlement, 'they cannot buy a single share for the next 10 years and we step off as promoters from each other's companies'.
Beyond this, care was taken to ensure that the brand name was protected from being sold to some unknown entity. 'We did not cut any corners either. My board was extremely particular and negotiated the inter-company arrangement and got all the right terms. In the end, the patience paid off as far as NRB is concerned thanks to our uncompromising stand,' said Zaveri.