Corporate Reports

Published: Dec 29, 2021
Updated: Dec 29, 2021

Meera Industries: Industry topper in textile technology

Just 15 years old, Meera Industries turns out world-class machinery for all kinds of textile requirements and has even pioneered technology that cuts manufacturing costs substantially. In fact, it is thanks to founder and firstgen entrepreneur Dharmesh Desai’s focus on innovation and technical expertise that the company has put India in the small club of exporters of highly sophisticated textile machines. The company’s financials have followed suit, rising from around Rs 5 crore in fiscal 2012 to Rs 34 crore in fiscal 2019, just before the Covid pandemic hit India Inc. The company went public in 2017, and has proven a hit on the BSE.

A new star is rising on the industrial horizon of Surat, Gujarat, and it’s name is Meera Industries. First-gen entrepreneur Dharmesh Desai, who graduated in mechanical engineering and worked for around a decade in the textile industry (including 7 years in Garden Silk Mills, Surat) founded the company to chart a new course in textile twisting technology and machinery. Floated in 2006 with just two staffers, Meera Industries today provides, under one roof, the complete range of twisting, winding, cabling, doubling, ring twisting, bulking and heat-setting machines for polyesJust 15 years old, Meera Industries turns out world-class machinery for all kinds of textile requirements and has even pioneered technology that cuts manufacturing costs substantially. In fact, it is thanks to founder and firstgen entrepreneur Dharmesh Desai’s focus on innovation and technical expertise that the company has put India in the small club of exporters of highly sophisticated textile machines. The company’s financials have followed suit, rising from around Rs 5 crore in fiscal 2012 to Rs 34 crore in fiscal 2019, just before the Covid pandemic hit India Inc. The company went public in 2017, and has proven a hit on the BSE. ter, polypropylene, nylon, polyamide polyester and acrylic materials.

Known for his technical expertise and innovative approach, Mr Desai’s and his company’s major designing principle has always been energy optimisation, process optimisation and high productivity. A good example of that is Meera’s pioneering TPRS technology – the three processes of twisting, plying and reverse twisting combined in one. The new technology reportedly reduces costings by 40 per cent as compared to all other traditional methods. Being a leading manufacturer of spun/staple twister machines, Meera has emerged as the first company to develop double-deck spun twisting machines with a view to increasing productivity and efficiency. India, which was depending on imports of twisting machines, has emerged as an exporter thanks to the innovation and engineering skills of Mr Desai.

Today, Meera’s machines are doing extremely well not only in India but also in the US, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia, especially in countries like Germany, Spain, Turkey, Belgium, Italy, Thailand, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Peru and Bolivia.

With a view to expanding its market in the western world, the company has floated Meera Industries USA LLC as a wholly-owned subsidiary in North Carolina. The subsidiary caters to the growing base of customers in the US, Canada and various South American countries like Mexico, Equador and Peru.

“Of course, our journey so far has not been easy, what with intermittent financial and other problems, but it has been fascinating,” maintains an elated Mr Desai. He goes on, “We succeeded in manufacturing winding machines of international quality and comparable to the best in the US and Europe. In fiscal 2010-11, the Textile Machinery Manufacturers Association recognized our achievement and gave us the R&D award for our TPRS twister and the next year the R&D award for the Meerabah continuous bulking and heat-setting machine. We feel our efforts in research and development have been recognised and it gave us a fresh impetus to focus on further improvement in our products.”

FUTURE-READY GROWTH

Experts were surprised that a small unit like Meera could manufacture modern twisting machines, and this made Mr Desai even more determined to chart his company’s growth on the back of its core values of innovation and future-readiness. Despite the limitations of its relatively small size, Meera continued to make headway on the strength of its technical excellence and innovative approach.

Its financials started steadily, albeit slowly, improving. The sales turnover, which was in the range of Rs 3-5 crore in fiscals 2011 and 2012, started rising and reached near Rs 34 crore in fiscal 2019, before declining to Rs 20 crore and Rs 21 crore in the two pandemic years. But as the impact of the pandemic wanes, the company’s business has started improving in the current fiscal. If the trend so far is any indication, Meera’s sales turnover will cross Rs 30 crore this year. Experts feel the company can hit the Rs 100-crore mark by fiscal 2025.

Realising that the prospects for the company are highly promising and that there is an urgent need to graduate from its small-scale status, Mr Desai took Meera Industries public in 2017 with an IPO and got listed on the SME platform of the BSE. Last month, the company graduated to the bourse’s main board. Needless to say, the company’s IPO met with resounding success and today its shares with a face value of Rs 10 issued at Rs. 36 are being quoted at five times after considering the bonus shares issued.

The pandemic setback did not dishearten Mr Desai — during the lockdown period, he focused his and the company’s energies on R&D. As a result, the company crossed a major milestone in its product development journey and developed two unique machines – a CT260 cable twister with an individual drive system for the BCF carpet segment, and a DTX-300 twister with recession winding for the technical textile segment. Much to the credit of Meera Industries, there are very few manufacturers of these kinds of twisting machines even globally.

ON FAST TRACK

Says an elated Mr Desai, “The success of these two models has the potential to bring parabolic revenue growth to Meera, which can definitely put us in the next trajectory of growth.” He continues, “We consider the carpet and technical textile segment a high value, high volume segment. In this segment, we have now developed products to position ourselves in the $ 1,500-2,500 per spindle range. As a result of this achievement, we have started winning the confidence of the ‘big boys’ in this segment from all over the world. Now, Meera will add ‘layer 2’ to its existing mix of consumers. This layer will comprise big mills with a high value order size.” “this has prepared ground for Meera to climb up in the higher sales orbit of Rs. 150 crore to RS. 250 crore,” maintains Mr. Desai. Prospects for the company going ahead are highly promising. In fact, it has tremendous opportunities when viewed from a global perspective. Asserts Mr. Desai, “The twisting market the world over is dominated by a few leading manufacturers in Europe and America who control 80-90 per cent of marketshare. Now, Meera has placed India in this category. Interestingly, Indian machines are highly cost-effective while those of American and European companies are considerably costlier and unviable.

This is the reason why we see every year a change of ownership, takeovers, mergers and acquisitions, or shutting down and relocation of plants.”

Continuing in the same vein, Mr Desai notes, “This global turmoil will create voids and opportunities for equally good players like us to take their place. Perhaps in the new world economic order where the focus will be more on localisation than globalisation, where Indians have a bright chance to lead the world, we are confident that Meera will be establishing itself as a global leader in the twisting segment in the years to come.”

Adds Mr Desai, “We have a sense that macro indicators are suggesting a swifter pace of growth. We have taken that into account and have already started planning to expand our manufacturing capacity by almost five times. A new 60,000 sq ft building is under construction and will be operational by beginning of the next fiscal year.” Stock market analysts feel that there is remarkable growth potential in the stock price of Meera going ahead.