Skip to main content

Power Mech Projects: The Engineering Hub


In the last two years, the Hyderabad-based company has achieved exceptional scale in the business of setting up plants for India's power companies.

The first step of setting up a plant is the most arduous for any power company. It requires intense engineering expertise which is often in short supply—and also proves expensive to acquire and retain. The simpler option is to outsource the heavy-lifting: Enter Power Mech Projects, a Hyderabad-based company, which spotted this opportunity back in 1999. 

Having overcome the hurdles of bank financing and talent, it has now become one of the few players to achieve scale in this business. With a consistent growth of about 15 percent annually, Power Mech boasts a list of marquee private players—Tata Power, Adani Power and Jindal Power to name a few—as well as public sector power producers such as NTPC. 

2013 has been one of Power Mech’s busiest years: It built, tested and commissioned projects for a cumulative capacity of 40,000 MW across India. It also erected 65 boilers and 80 turbines during the period. And, in the process, it crossed Rs 1,000 crore in revenues for the first time.

The man behind it
Entering this industry is not for the weak-hearted. Sajja Kishore Babu (Chairman and MD), however, was confident when he took the call to set up Power Mech. After all, he had spent the first 14 years of his career in an engineering company, Indwell Construction, where, at the age of 28, he was part of a team that helped set up power plants. He rose up the company’s ranks to additional managing director and, later, to joint MD. That was when Babu decided to branch out on his own. 

As he saw it, he was the driving force behind the company’s success and had, over the years, built strong associations with NTPC and BHEL, a power plant equipment manufacturing and engineering PSU. “Why not do it for myself I thought,” says Babu, now 49. Within a year of his quitting Indwell, he had tapped into his extensive network and founded Power Mech. 

Babu’s personal touch and execution skills have resulted in his company gaining contracts from several large power producers in India. His colleagues describe him as someone who is relationship-oriented. “Once he sees someone, he does not forget the face,” says an employee at Power Mech. 

The company had a modest start in 1999 with a maintenance job at Tata Power’s plant at Trombay in Mumbai. “They knew me, and that is how I got the job,” says Babu. 

In its first year, Power Mech generated revenues of Rs 5 crore; this helped him get the bank guarantees necessary to start offering construction services that included erecting boilers, turbines and other machinery. A year later, BHEL also registered Power Mech as a contractor and the company began to get a steady stream of projects. 

Power Mech has now been in the business for 15 years. It has acquired a high-profile and large customer base. These relationships are not easy to replicate, and managing them are a particular strength of Babu’s. Also, now that it has strong ties with these companies, it has started to get maintenance jobs as well. Unlike construction contracts, these are annuity businesses with 3-5-year-long contracts and Ebidta margins of 20-22 percent. This ensures a steady stream of revenue for Power Mech. 

Most significantly, while several companies have reached the Rs 50 crore-level, few have managed to break out to this extent. With revenues of Rs 1,196 crore, Power Mech is an exception. In fact, the buoyancy of the last two years has led Bapu to up the sales target to Rs 1,650 crore by 2016. A listing by March 2015 is also being discussed. 

While Power Mech’s current numbers may be impressive, it took Babu 15 years to achieve scale and get private equity players interested in the business. It was only in 2009 that Motilal Oswal Private Equity took note of it and invested Rs 40 crore for an undisclosed stake. Further, despite its obvious relevance—and the fact that it plays a role in keeping our lights on—Power Mech’s work with power plants is not a consumer-facing business.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Padma Shri T. N. Manoharan former president of ICAI

Padma Shri (CA.) Thotala Narayanaswamy Manoharan is an Indian Chartered Accountant and a former president of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). Manoharan was born in April 1956 in a freedom fighter's family in a small village near Vellore, with agricultural background. He obtained a post graduate degree in Commerce from Sri Venkateshwara University and a law degree from Madras Law College. He became a Chartered Accountant in 1983 and set up his public practice in the same year. He is the founding partner of the accounting firm Manohar Chowdhry & Associates, Chennai. He was elected to the central council of ICAI in 2001 and its Vice President in 2005. He remained as a Central Council Member till 2007. He has also chaired various committees of the Institute. In 2006, he was elected as the President of the ICAI (for a one year term). He is also a notable freemason. In 2009, Manoharan was one of the four members (as representatives of Government of India)...

Kamma Cine Heroes

1) N.T.Rama Rao 2) Akkineni Nageswara Rao 3) Gattamaneni Krishna 4) Sobhan Babu (Uppu Sobhana Chalapathi Rao) 5) Gummadi Venkatwsara Rao 6) Maganti Murali Mohan 7) Manchu Mohan Babu 8) Kongara Jaggayya 9) Giri babu (Yerra Seshagiri Rao) 10) Sridhar Surapaneni  11) Madala Ranga rao 12) Nandamuri Bala Krishna 13) SaiChand Tripuraneni 14) Akkineni Nagarjuna 15) Daggubati Venkatesh 16) Gadde Rajendra Prasad 17) Raja Sekhar (Kasukurthi) 18) Daggubati Raja 19) Bhagya Raj 20) Nandamuri Hari Krishna 21) Veeramachineni Jagapathi Babu 22) Meka Srikanth 23) Vadde Naveen 24) Tottempudi Venu 25) Gattamaneni Mahesh Babu 26) Junior. N.T.R 27) Sivaji Sontineni 28) Nandamuri Taraka Ratna 29) Nandamuri Kalyanaram 30) Yarlagadda Sumanth 31) Tottempudi Gopi Chand 32) Manchu Vishnu Vardhan 33) Manchu Manoj 34) Edara Naresh 35) Edara Aryan Rajesh 36) Ram Pothineni  37) Myneni Sarvanand 38) Daggubati Rana 39) Akkineni Naga Chaitanya 40) Nani (Ghanta Naveen Kum...

Kamma Movie Directors

List of Kamma Movie Ditrectors 1) Gudavalli Ramabrahmam 2) Akkineni Lakshmi Vara Prasad (LV Prasad) 3) Kovelamudi Bapayya 4) Veeramachineni Madhusudhana Rao 5) Kovelamudi S.Prakasa Rao 6) Kolli Pratyagatma 7) G.Sambasiva Rao 8) Tammareddy Krishnamurthy 9) Mannava Balayya 10) Tatineni Prakasa Rao 11) Tatineni Rama Rao 12) Tatineni Prasad 13) Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao 14) Gutta Ramineedu 15) Kolli Hemambaradhara Rao  16) Uppalapati Visveswara Rao 17) Tripuraneni Maharadhi 18) Tripuraneni Gopichand 19) Tottempudi Krishna 20) Madala Ranga Rao 21) Siva Nageswara Rao 22) Uppalapati Narayana Rao 23) P.Sarat 24) A.Mohan Gandhi 25) Bezawada Gopal 26) T.Kranthi Kumar 27) Maganti Vijaya Bapineedu 28) Tammareddy Bharadwaj 29) Akkineni Kutumba Rao 30) K.Vasu 31) Edara VV Satyanarayana 32) Muppalaneni Siva 33) Yalamanchili VS Chowdary 34) Theja Jasti 35) Sreenu Vytla 36) Koduri Srisaila Sri Rajamouli 37) Vemulapalli Srikanth 38) AS Ravikumar Chowdary 39)...

Munu Adhi: Former Speaker Tamilnadu Assembly and 4 times MLA

Munu Adhi (Born 4 September 1926, Died 21 June 2005) born at Tambaram near Chennai - Tamilnadu.  Mr Munu Adhi started his political career as a member of the Socialist Party in 1945. He joined the DMK in 1953 and was elected to the Tamil Nadu Assembly for four consecutive terms, in 1962, 1965, 1971 and 1977.  Having begun his political career with the DMK, the four-time Member of the Legislative Assembly, switched his loyalty to the AIADMK in 1972 when M G Ramachandran founded the party, after breaking away from the DMK.  For the fourth time, he was elected to the state Assembly in 1977 when the AIADMK, headed by MGR, came to power for the first time and Munu Adhi was made the Speaker of the Assembly. He held that post till 1980. He continued his loyalty with the AIADMK till 1996 after which he sided with S Thirunavukkarasu, a former AIADMK minister, who floated his own party which subsequently merged with the BJP.  The Adhi College of Engineering ...

List of 30 Kamma Billionaires and rankings

The IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2021 shows that India has more than 1,000 individuals who have a net worth of  ₹ 1,000 crore or more across 119 cities. The cumulative wealth in the country has gone up by 51 per cent, while the average wealth has also increased by 25 per cent, the report by Hurun India said. 30 Kamma business and industrialists finds place in the list from AP, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. 14. Murali Divi Rs76,000 crores Divis Laboratories 179. Venkateswarlu Jasti 9,600 crores Suven Pharma  190. Veeraiah Chowdary Nannapaneni 9,100 crores NATCO Laboratories  209. Chava Satyanarayana 8,400 crores Laurus Labs 264. Satya Nadella 6,200 crores Microsoft 368. Mandava PrabhakaraRao 4,300 crores Nuziveedu seeds 377. Ella KrishnaMurthy 4,100 crores Bharat Biotech 384. Doppalapudi Bhaktavatsala Rao 4000 crores Privi Speciality Chemicals 398. Galla Ramachandra Naidu  3,900 crores Amara Raja Batteries  398. Chinta VisveswaraRao 3,900 crores...

A road named after Veerasamy Naidu in Singapore

Veerasamy Road - Little India/ Singapore Veerasamy Road was renamed twice in its history; it was originally called Inche Lane, and was renamed Jalan Tambah in 1910. In 1927, the road was renamed again as Veerasamy Road, in honour of Dr N. Veerasamy Naidu (1865-1926), one of Singapore’s first Indian doctors and a leader in the local Indian community. Dr N Veerasamy Naidu was born in 1864. He was the son of Narayanasamy Naidu and Ramanuja Ammal. He learned Tamil from the age of four from his grandfather, Kuppusamy Naidu. He studied English at the Raffles School in Singapore and first worked at the lawyer’s office of Mr Cook. Unsatisfied in his job and drawn to the study of medicinal herbs, he decided to pursue an education in medical science and eventually worked in a hospital owned by Govindasamy Naidu. He set up his own clinic called Indian Dispensary in Rochor Road and derived effective scientific and traditional treatments for a variety of new diseases. He was the Presid...

List of Kamma Cine Heroes (Updated)

List of Kamma Movie stars: 1) Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao 2) Akkineni Nageswara Rao 3) Gattamaneni Krishna 4) Sobhan Babu (Uppu Sobhana Chalapathi Rao) 5) Gummadi Venkatwsara Rao 6) Maganti Murali Mohan 7) Manchu Mohan Babu 8) Kongara Jaggayya 9) Giri babu (Yerra Seshagiri Rao) 10) Sridhar Surapaneni (Mutyalamuggu fame) 11) Madala Ranga rao 12) Nandamuri Bala Krishna 13) SaiChand Tripuraneni 14) Akkineni Nagarjuna 15) Daggubati Venkatesh 16) Gadde Rajendra Prasad 17) Raja Sekhar (Kasukurthi) 18) Daggubati Raja 19) Bhagya Raj 20) Nandamuri Hari Krishna 21) Veeramachineni Jagapathi Babu 22) Meka Srikanth 23) Vadde Naveen 24) Tottempudi Venu 25) Gattamaneni Mahesh Babu 26) Junior. N.T.R 27) Sivaji Sontineni 28) Nandamuri Taraka Ratna 29) Nandamuri Kalyanaram 30) Yarlagadda Sumanth 31) Tottempudi Gopi Chand 32) Manchu Vishnu Vardhan 33) Manchu Manoj 34) Edara Naresh 35) Edara Aryan Rajesh 36) Ram Pothineni 37) Myneni Sarvanand  38) Daggubati Rana...

Jr NTR's engagement with 18-year-old Narne Lakshmi

Junior NTR (27) will get engaged with one Narne Lakshmi Pranathi . Narne Lakshmi Pranathi is daughter of TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu's niece Narne Mallika and Narne Srinivasa Rao owner of 'Studio N' TV channel. The engagement will be held in last of Feb 2010, sources said. Interestingly, Narne is just 18-year-old and class 12th student of Nazar Junior College of Hyderabad.

Richest man in Andhra Pradesh

It is neither Reddy nor Raju. It is only Kamma .. According to the Forbes magazine, Lagadapati Madhusudhan Rao ( 41 ) is the richest person in Andhra Prades h stands at No- 33 among the richest persons in India . Also he is the youngest in the list, there is no Andhrite in the list. Lagadapati Madhusudhan Rao is the Chairman - Lanco Infratech Ltd , the Hyderabad-based diversified group. His net worth is 1.9 billion dollars., ahead of Vijay Mallya, N.R. Narayana Murthy. Divi Murali of Divi's Lab is narrowly missed the berth in the list. Murali, best of luck next year..

Pulipati Vaiyapuri Gopalaswamy (alias) VAIKO

Pulipati V. Gopalsamy also known as Vaiko , is a prominent politician in Tamil Nadu, in south India.  V Gopalsamy was born into a Telugu speaking Kamma Naidu family in Kalingapatty near Sankarankovil, Madras Presidency (now Tamil Nadu) on 22 May 1944 to Pulipati Vaiyapuri and Ravilla Mariammal   He is the founder and General Secretary of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), a political party active mainly in the state of Tamil Nadu. He is known for his vocal support of Tamil people in Sri Lanka and LTTE. He graduated with a Bachelor of arts degree in economics from St. Xavier's College, Palayamkottai and masters from Presidency College, Chennai. He obtained his bachelor's degree in law from Madras Law College. He received Gold Medal in Economics and Best Speaker Award in St. Xavier’s College in 1964 Vaiko was a part of[Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (D.M.K)] and was formerly seen as the ideological protege of former Chief Minister of Tamil ...