The acquisition of Hansen gives us technological leadership and will make Suzlon a leading integrated wind turbine manufacturer in the world. With this acquisition Suzlon has truly emerged as a global player with significant market presence, manufacturing base and R&D centres across North America, Europe, India, China, South Korea and Australia. With a presence across the entire turbine technology chain, we see Suzlon becoming further cost competitive and providing an efficient and robust wind energy solution to its customers.

In 1995, Tulsi R Tanti, a textile mill owner frustrated over the erratic electricity supply to his plant and increasing energy costs founded Suzlon Energy. Wind energy at that time had little or no presence in India and the Europeans dominated the global wind energy markets. This did not perturb Tanti as he went ahead to venture into an industry which hardly had any takers at that time. Nonetheless, in just a little over a decade of its existence, Tanti's small venture has today grown into Asia's No. 1 and the world's fifth largest wind turbine manufacturer. The company's stock which made its debut at a premium of 25% last October has more than doubled since then; it quoted at Rs. 1,321, as on May 12, 2006 and is one of the hot picks on Dalal Street. Thanks to the soaring stock price, Tanti's fortune has grown enough to earn him a place in this year's Forbes' Top 40 Richest Indians list; he is placed at the 8^th spot. However, not content with all the accolades he has been bestowed upon with and success at home, when Tanti sealed, an all-cash deal worth $565 mn (Rs. 2,514 cr) for acquiring the Belgian gearbox maker, Hansen Transmissions Internationalnot only it became the second highest bid for an overseas acquisition by an Indian company, it also signaled Suzlon's arrival on the global wind energy map. Headquartered in Belgium, Hansen is a leading gearbox manufacturer with strong R&D capabilities and modern manufacturing facilities. It focuses on the fast growing wind turbine generation sector; all wind turbines contain gearboxes, which convert the slow rotation of the shaft into the high speed required to generate electricity. Besides, it is also active in other industrial segments of the gearbox market. The company, which was founded in 1923, has its primary manufacturing facilities in Belgium, with sales, assembly and service centers in the UK, the US, South Africa and Australia. Hansen's current manufacturing capabilities include 3,600 MW of wind turbine gearboxes and 3,000 units of industrial gearboxes per year.

It makes great economic sense to break from just being a wind mill player to a fully integrated player with presence in both turbines and gensets so as to pare down power costs; the gensets triple the power capacity received from the wind mill. Further, given the world's never satiating need for power and more so China's soaring energy needs, there is a rush on part of the players to cash in on the supply crunch. And Suzlon doesn't want to be left behind. The company generated 970 MW in the fiscal ended March 31, 2006, of which, it supplied a miniscule 88 MW to international markets. But going ahead, the company aims to increase the exposure to international markets significantly while at the same time, reducing over dependence on the domestic market. "We want to reduce the domestic share to 60% from the current 90%. We are looking at many countries", commented Tulsi Tanti, CMD, Suzlon Energy.

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