Ahmedabad, June 3 (IANS) Gujarat-based Polycab Wires Private Ltd (Polycab) has approached the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private lending arm of the World Bank group, to finance its expansion plan spread over the next three years. The Polycab group comprises eight cable manufacturing companies and manufacturing plants in Halol in Vadodara district and in the union territory of Daman.

The company is rated as India’s leading manufacturer of power cables and light duty cables with a 17.5 percent market share. Its annual sales are estimated at $510 million, with 10 plants and employing 1,500 people. The company belongs to the Mumbai-based Jaisinghani group.

No further details from the company were available, but according to information on the IFC website, the firm has been approached for a corporate investment to partly finance Polycab’s expansion programme.

Polycab is also constructing new facilities at Halol and Daman. The proposal is scheduled to come before the IFC board June 19.

The IFC has said that its presence would provide an important stamp of approval particularly in Polycab’s future plans for expansion and access to additional sources of funding.

In February, Polycab signed an agreement with Nexans, a French company listed in Euronext Paris, to form a joint venture for manufacturing specialty cables such as elastometric and extra-high voltage cables. The joint venture would have an investment of Rs.1.5 billion.

The joint venture would be headquartered in Mumbai and would initially cover the manufacture and marketing of cables for the shipbuilding, material handling, railways and wind power industries. These activities are expected to generate sales of 50-60 million euros by 2011.