Mumbai, March 20: The Tata group’s engineering company Voltas Ltd will set up a joint venture with Germany’s KION Group GmbH to develop and make forklift trucks and warehousing equipment in India.

Voltas’s material handling division will be transferred to this joint venture in which the KION Group, a market leader in Europe in industrial trucks, will hold a majority share. Voltas did not specify the exact shareholding of this venture that will be called Voltas Material Handling (VMH). The company is expected to kick off operations in April.

A statement by Voltas said VMH would focus on the Indian market with 25 branches and nationwide dealerships. Its product range will include diesel, LPG and electric trucks with load capacities of 1.5 tonnes to 16 tonnes.

The two companies did not disclose the investment in this joint venture, but the KION Group is keen to invest in the sub-continent for the long term. KION Group CEO Gordon Riske said, “Voltas is one of the most successful forklift manufacturers in India. It has strong sales, an effective service network.” The KION Group expects demand to grow in the sub-continent as more industries expand.

Commenting on the setting up of the joint venture, Voltas managing director Sanjay Johri said, “KION has unrivalled know-how and technological leadership in the forklift truck business, so the partnership will help VMH to further consolidate its leading position in India. The Voltas brand will continue to expand its product range, particularly in the warehouse equipment sector.”

Till now, KION has been supplying forklift trucks to India through its Linde Material Handling and STILL brands. Now, VMH will serve the volume market with its competitive product range, the statement said.

KPMG advised Voltas on this transaction.

AC price hike bid

Voltas plans to hike the prices of its air conditioners by another three per cent in April, the second this year, to offset the rise in metal prices it consumes, a top company official told PTI.

The company had in January hiked prices of its air conditioners (ACs) by five to seven per cent, thus passing on the burden of increased input costs to customers.

“We might hike prices by another three per cent in April as commodity prices have gone up. We have implemented a price hike in January this year. We will continue to hike prices if raw material costs go up further,” Voltas’s chief operating officer Pradeep Bakshi said.

However, he would not say by how much the rising costs had affected the company’s overall margins.