Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. has announced its plans to increase its 3% stake in TVS Automobile Solutions Pvt. Ltd (TASL) to 25%. Mitsubishi, which had bought a 3% stake in TASL last year, is investing in excess of ₹250 crore to increase its stake through primary investment and secondary purchase, subject to approval by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and other authorities, TASL Director R. Dinesh said.
The secondary purchase included the acquisition by Mitsubishi of some portion of the stake held by Kitara Capital, the first equity investor to have picked up a minor stake in TASL, Dinesh said.
The new arrangement will help TASL to source parts from Japanese auto parts suppliers directly for India’s automotive aftermarket, while Mitsubishi, along with TASL, would replicate the latter’s business model in other similar markets such as West Asia and Africa as part of global business expansion, according to Dinesh.
The automotive aftermarket in India stands at $8 billion, with an annual growth rate of 10-15%, according to TASL executive director Srinivasa Raghavan.
“The aftermarket is highly fragmented with more than 100,000 garages if we consider passenger vehicles, and more than 400,000 garages if we include the two-wheeler segment. There are around 40,000 retailers and at least 4,000 distributors,” said Raghavan, who believes that these are all the livelihood players who are desperately looking for a platform that can empower them through skilling, supply chain enhancement, and technologies to sustain and grow.
TASL caters to the unorganized aftermarket, which stands at 70% of the whole segment, through genuine spare parts, technologies, processes, and training, he said.
