Hinduja Foundries plans investments worth 3.5 bln rupees

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Hinduja Foundries Ltd, which makes castings for automobiles, reported a marginal rise in Jan-March net profit, helped by a better product mix, and said it planned investments worth 3.5 billion rupees over the next two to three years.

The investment plans include creation of facilities to manufacture machined castings, the company said in a statement.

The company will be investing further in its research & development centre at Chennai during the year, and also in a new plant at Sriperumbudur to enhance capacity to 72,000 tonnes per annum from 2009/10.

Its Sriperumbudur foundry began commercial production of castings during the year.

For the Jan-March period, the company reported net profit of 70.2 million rupees on net sales of 1.3 billion rupees. It had posted a profit of 66.6 million rupees on net sales of 1.09 billion rupees for the same period last year.