Ashok Leyland acquires OHM Global Mobility, to invest Rs 300 crore

Ashok Leyland Ltd has announced the acquisition of 100 per cent stake in OHM Global Mobility Pvt Ltd (OHM) from OHM International Mobility Ltd to house all its future E-MaaS business with the newly acquired entity.

E-MaaS refers to ‘Electric Mobility as a Service’. E-MaaS combines innovative technology and new business models to create the conditions for large-scale adoption of electric vehicles (EV).

In a stock exchange filing, Ashok Leyland said that its board approved the acquisition of OHM Global Mobility for a nominal consideration of Rs 1 lakh as the company is yet to become operational.

With this move, OHM Global Mobility becomes a 100 per cent subsidiary of Ashok Leyland and would house all its future E-MaaS business to bring greater focus.

Ashok Leyland also announced that it would be investing up to Rs 300 crore as equity into OHM Global Mobility to operationalise the company. In addition, existing E-MaaS contracts will be transferred to OHM, subject to necessary approvals.

Ashok Leyland’s executive chairman Dheeraj G Hinduja said, “E-MaaS is gaining significance in India, and we feel that this is the right time for us to operationalise OHM India.”

“E-MaaS will be a strategy adopted by both the public sector and private sector to enhance EV penetration. The government is looking to strengthen the payment mechanism under E-MaaS and there are several initiatives that the government is pursuing to enhance EV adoption. Given this backdrop, OHM will acquire significant importance and we are very positive on its prospects,” he added.

Reason behind the acquisition

Highlighting the need of the acquisition, Ashok Leyland’s managing director and CEO Shenu Agarwal said, “Today a significant part of the EV bus market – especially state transport undertaking orders – are routed under the E-MaaS mechanism and we needed to have a separate company for that.”

Agarwal added, “Switch India will be supplying the EV buses and light commercial vehicles to OHM for it to deploy under the E-MaaS contracts. OHM will become an important company in the EV portfolio of Ashok Leyland.”

Stock price remain flat

Shares of Ashok Leyland were trading marginally positive on Wednesday after the news of the acquisition. At 11:29 am, the stock was trading at Rs 188.40, up 0.8 per cent, on BSE.

Over the past one year, Ashok Leyland shares have risen about 26 per cent compared to a 9 per cent increase in the benchmark Sensex during the same period.