Sajjan Jindal's Home Run With New Biz

Paints, cement, renewables post impressive numbers as group drives into the EV space.

- Nevin John

SAJJAN JINDAL, chairman, JSW Group, aborted the idea of foraying into electric car manufacturing multiple times before the $24 billion group made a plunge in March this year. The billionaire was finally convinced that EV penetration would happen much faster than everybody thought, and JSW needed to acquire the platform and technology fast enough.

JSW Group, which has been in the B2B segment for almost three decades, entered the pure-play electric car manufacturing industry by picking up 51% stake in MG Motor India, a subsidiary of Chinese auto major SAIC Motor, along with a few Indian investors.

Soon after the deal, the carmaker made a unique offer to disrupt the EV market: It launched a subscription model that lowers the upfront cost of high-end EV to less than ₹10 lakh, a price point largely considered the sweet spot in the industry now. Recently, JSW MG Motor India announced all its EV models can be purchased under BaaS (battery as a service) model, under which one can buy an EV at a significantly lower price but will have to pay a running cost for the battery.

Meanwhile, the flagship steel business, which Jindal has been building since he was in his 30s, added over 10 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) capacity in the last three years. Besides greenfield expansions, JSW Steel acquired bankrupt companies Bhushan Power and Steel (BPSL) and Monnet Ispat in 2022, and increased the capacity to 28.2MT. It now plans to raise the capacity to 50MT by March 2031.