JVGlobal on the big stage

Small Perth steel building products company JVGlobal Ltd has quietly clinched two important joint ventures with two of the biggest groups in rapidly expanding India and the United Arab Emirates.

The deals are the result of elephant-like persistence on the part of JVGlobal managing director Terry Opie, both before and after he founded and floated the company in January last year.

It has taken him eight years to crack the Indian steel frame door and window market and two years to establish production in Dubai from this week.

Production from India, initially frames then other cold rolled steel building products, is scheduled to begin in August this year.

It was nearly a decade ago that Mr Opie came across the cold rolled steel technology developed over the past 30 years by Perth company Colrol Pty Ltd.

Colrol owner Brian Luscombe has designed a 10-metre computer controlled production line for JVGlobal that turns sheets of non rust zinc steel alloy into door frames, ready drilled for hinges and locks and operated by just one person.

Mr Opie bought and sold a number of the machines and attacked several export markets, including India and the UAR. However, he realised there was a much bigger business in supplying the machines, the operators, the steel and ongoing marketing of the finished product.

JV Global raised $3 million and listed in January, 2005.

After two years of contact, the company recently completed a joint venture with Arabian Profile Global LLC (54 per cent), a subsidiary of GIBCA Group controlled by the Sharjah royal family. GIBCA has 9 per cent stake in JVGlobal.

Production from a factory and office alongside Arabian Profile’s own operations – capable of producing 1,400 door frames a day – begins this week.

In India, JVGlobal has signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a joint venture with the Shapoorji Pallonji Group (60 per cent) to produce steel doors and window frames in Mumbai from August.

Shapoorji Pallonji is owned by the Mistry family, which owns more than 18 per cent of the TATA Group, India’s biggest company with an annual turnover of more than $US15 billion. Shapoorji Pallonji has an annual turnover of more than $US644 million.

Speaking from Dubai, Mr Opie told WA Business News the joint ventures had taken most of the risk out of the company.