A strong, diversified & successful business group
Lakshmi Ring Travellers (LRT), yet another successful business group from Coimbatore with diversified interests in textile, engineering, foundries, and more recently in water treatment systems, is indeed a global leader in ring travellers, enjoying a dominant share both in the domestic and overseas markets.
Says Mr. J.M. Balaji, Head – Marketing, LRT: “The leadership position of the company can be attributed to the value proposition we offer, clubbed with on-time delivery and service to any part of the world. We have established a logistics network across all major markets. In China, for example, we have more than nine stock points. We are also continuously working on improving the metallurgical characteristics of the travellers, which result in improved quality of yarn and longer life of the ring travellers. The life of the travellers has almost doubled in the last 10 years. All this makes LRT the most preferred brand in all major markets”.
In 2007, the company entered into a joint venture with Caipo, Lakshmi Caipo Industries Ltd., which specializes in slub and core yarn attachments Lakshmi-Caipo is the market leader in India in slub yarn attachments. With Caipo and Pinter coming together globally, this has helped the Indian entity offer more competitive products for the core yarn segment and is doing very well in recent times.
“We are clearly the market leaders with a 75% share in the slub yarn market. In slub we can claim to be the one with maximum features in terms of slub patterns, productivity and repeatability. Today we have around 5,50,000 spindles running on our product,” adds Mr. Balaji.
LRT has an engineering division which specializes in offering services in the field of CNC machining, heavy turning and engineering fabrication for various industry groups ranging from aerospace to textile machinery. It has also a CNC profile cutting machine division which manufactures state-of-the-art Plasma and Oxy fuel cutting machines.
In its foundry division LRT manufactures a wide range of steel castings catering to valve, pump, and mining & engineering industries. The company’s surface coating division provides specialized coating solution in nickel, zinc, hard chrome plating facilities.
LRT’s more recent venture has been in the area of waste water and solid waste management. This was a division of LRT till a few years back, but now this has been hived off as a separate company part of the group.
Mr. Balaji observes: “We would like to work with companies that are quite serious about waste management and water treatment systems. We have tied up with a lot of consultants globally for various technologies. We can now offer the most ideal solution based on the client requirement, size of the project and effluent characteristics. We have more than 10,000 mandays of experience with partners across many industries and verticals”.
In ring travellers, the company enjoys leadership position in most of the markets. China is the second biggest market after India. Presently exports are made to 40 countries worldwide, and the export growth year on year is contributing to the company’s overall growth in a significant way. A few markets like Turkey offer scope for further penetration.
With five major manufacturing facilities and over 1,000 people working for the company, LRT expects to grow by 20-25 per cent year-on-year. It is also confident of being able to strengthen its business across all the existing verticals that it is present in.