Friday, January 1, 2016

TRATEC is now with TII

Probably the biggest news in heavy transport in India in 2015 was the acquiring of India's first hydraulic platform trailer manufacturer TRATEC by German Trailer Manufacturer TII Group. TII were to officially announce the acquisition in October 2015 in the presence of German VC. However, this didn't happen as VC couldn't make it.
TII acquired the Bawal plant of TRATEC and is now manufacturing from here. As per TII, this is all to take forward Indian PM's call for "Make in India" initiative.
This news is both Good and Bad.
Good because India will now get German quality trailers (hopefully) at much lower price now sans the hefty import taxes.
Bad news because it would be not exactly the "Make in India" thing which our PM must have thought of. This acquisition finished-off an Indian company. TRATEC had seen glorious days in the past but forgot to update itself and at the end had to sell-off its Civil business.
Goldhofer, another German Trailer manufacturer had a near monopoly in imported hydraulic trailer market in India, will have sleepless nights. Few years back they did try to do similar thing but the project did not take off. Now, with lower priced German trailers available in India without the import hassles, it would be interesting to see, what would Goldhofer do now.