Eversendai eyes bigger jobs in M’sia, India

KUALAL LUMPUR (Jan 6, 2012): Steel engineering firm Eversendai Corp Bhd, which boasted a healthy orderbook of RM1.5 billion made up mostly of overseas jobs, is eyeing bigger projects at home and in India as it seeks to grow revenue by at least 10% annually.

Group managing director Datuk A.K. Nathan said the company is currently bidding for RM12 billion worth of contracts in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Russia.

"We are looking at several substantial jobs in Malaysia,'' he told reporters after a signing ceremony yesterday.
At present, about 95% of the group's orderbook consists of overseas contracts.

Nathan said contribution from Malaysia is expected to double this year to 10% based on a number of projects that the company expects to secure.
Recently, Eversendai was awarded some sub-contracting jobs at the Manjung power plant in Perak, as well as fabrication for pipe racks at the Sabah Oil and Gas Terminal.

The company is also the contractor for steel structures at KLIA2 in Sepang.

Another growing market is India, where Eversendai is building its fifth fabrication factory outside Chennai.
"India is another big growing market for us,'' Nathan said.
The company is doing some RM350 million worth of work in India, and the figure is expected to grow substantially once the new factory is up and running within the next six months.
In total, Eversendai's existing fabrication facilities in Rawang, Selangor, Sharjah and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and Doha in Qatar have a combined manufacturing capacity of 120,000 tonnes a year.
Eversendai sold shares to retail investors at RM1.62 apiece in June last year, but the stock has remained trapped in a tight trading range since then on worries that a slowdown in construction activities in key market the Middle East will hurt future earnings.
Nathan reassured that the company is still "growing" in that market and remained unaffected by problems in the region.
"We are quite lucky in a sense that we don't rely too much on any single client or country,'' he said.
In all, the company has completed over 100 projects in 10 countries.
Yesterday, Eversendai inked an agreement to deploy Oracle enterprise resources solution to improve its operations across different regions.
It will be working with Sunway's business application unit to implement the system.