|
|
| Feature Story |
|
Mervyn Pinto: India's Quick Builder
 In 1991 Mervyn Pinto was on board a ship sailing through the oily waters of the Persian Gulf. It was during the first Gulf War and his shipping company was aiding in the cleanup of the massive oil spills created by Saddam Hussain’s armies. With SCUD missiles flying overhead, Pinto, the on-scene commander, took his ship to within 11 kilometres of where Coalition forces were bombarding Iraqi troops.
“That was one of the exciting parts of running a shipping company . . . leading the team in such operations,” he says.
Pinto, who got his start on the sea as a cadet at the age of 17, became the youngest captain to be given a command in the Indian Merchant Navy at the age of 25.
In 1985 he started his own shipping company and moved to Dubai. In 1990, he entered into a joint venture with a Norwegian group and helped manage a fleet of seven vessels.
“It was exciting,” he says of seafaring life.
But four years after moving to Canada in 1994, the seaman turned ship master turned shipping company owner decided it was time to pursue something on dry land.
“When I moved here I was practically travelling all the time. It was taking a toll on me,” he recalls, adding that running a shipping company is a 24/7 job. “You are at the beck and call of everyone because the ships keep sailing and anything can happen at any time.”
Having experience in international trade, Pinto decided to take a course to gain Canadian credentials as a foreign international trade professional. That’s when he and four other students in the program decided to form a company, Minaean International, that would use western technologies to help third-world countries like India.
“My passion was to give back something to the country that I came from,” says Pinto, who had short-listed housing as an industry to pursue. “In those days ‘housing for all’ was sort of a slogan that was being preached all around in India.”
One of the members of the team (only Pinto remains with the company today) happened to be an engineer with experience in steel and cold forming.
“He came up with a new light-gauge steel construction technology,” says Pinto.
The group began developing an innovative steel-frame construction system they termed “quick-build” that could be used to erect pre-fabricated modular homes that were lightweight but structurally sound enough to resist magnitude 7.3 earthquakes and high winds.
“The technology was perfect for places like India,” says Pinto.
The plan was to patent the process and test and continue to develop it in Canada before introducing it to other countries. But a massive earthquake in Gujarat in January 2001, which killed more than 20,000 people and left more than 600,000 homeless, prompted Minaean to expedite its plans.
An estimated 348,000 homes were destroyed and more than 844,000 damaged, sparking vigorous debate about the need for seismically superior homes to replace traditional concrete houses. It was just the purpose that Minaean had envisioned for its modular buildings.
Pinto decided to go to India to see how Minaean could contribute to the re-building process, while at the same time promote their new system in a country that desperately needed more and better homes.
“My thoughts were to do business in India or to introduce the system into India,” says Pinto.
While the disaster in India presented an opportunity, doing business in India wasn’t as simple as showing up with a great solution. In fact, convincing people that pre-fabricated homes made of steel were better than bricks and mortar proved to be, well, like running into a brick wall.
“People there only believe you can live in concrete homes,” he says.
Determined to prove their homes were sound, Pinto set up two model homes for all to see and inspect – one in Mumbai and the second in Bhuj, Gujarat, close to the epicentre of the earthquake.
Eventually, the government of Andra Pradesh gave Pinto a trial order of 50 homes, which were unveiled in 2003. Fortunately, that’s all that Pinto needed to get the attention of some of the leading construction companies in India. One company that took note was the Tata Group. At the time, Tata Steel, one of the group’s subsidiaries, had a mandate to increase the use of steel in India.
“Tata Steel approached us to sign a strategic alliance partnership to promote steel housing in India, which was one of the greatest boosts we received,” says Pinto. The surprising move by Tata Steel gave legitimacy to Minaean’s process. Finally, the slow process of introducing innovative products in India began to gain traction.
Today, Minaean, based in Vancouver and listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (MIB), has more than 140 employees in India and operates two wholly owned subsidiaries, Minaean Habitat (India) PVT Ltd. for Indian operations, and Minaean Building Structures Inc. for North American operations. With three manufacturing plants (two in Mumbai and one in Bangalore) the company has become well known for its pioneering efforts in light-gauge steel components for the construction industry and in modular buildings in India.
Sales have grown from just over $200,000 in 2003 to nearly $3,500,000 in 2007, landing the company the 21st spot on Business In Vancouver’s 100 fastest growing companies in B.C. list last year. In a recent interview on BNN, Pinto estimated that the company’s revenues for 2008 will be close to $9 million – a notable achievement in a time when companies worldwide are struggling just to maintain revenues, let alone grow them.
“Minaean in Canada mostly does the engineering. We get the designs here. We do the engineering,” explains Pinto. Meanwhile, the fabrication is done in India.
“Being a wholly owned subsidiary, the complete capital injection is done from here. The complete control is here,” he explains from his downtown Vancouver office, adding that he communicates daily with his management team in India.
For Pinto, the success they’ve achieved so far is just the beginning.
In a word, he says, the market in India is “huge.”
“The way I look at it is India’s need of 25 million homes cannot be met with even a thousand companies like ours,” says Pinto. “And you still have the middle income group which is now starting to own apartments.”
Minaean’s modular building system can be adapted from single-storey, single-family houses to multi-family mass housing residential buildings up to four storeys in height. A growing number of people in India are considering modular construction for their homes as they can be ready to occupy within 60 to 100 days.
There are other areas in which Minaean has achieved success. While they were struggling to establish the concept of modular steel homes and the general acceptance of their light-gauge steel systems in India, Minaean was invited by Shell India, which has plans to construct 2,000 gas stations across the country, to make pre-fabricated buildings for their gas stations.
Minaean is also working with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), India’s largest retail gas supplier with more than 8000 outlets, for which it has already built a prototype retail building. Of BPCL’s 8000 outlets, only 200 have retail buildings, says a Minaean press release, but the company plans to upgrade at least half of the remainder and outfit them with retail facilities. Minaean management in India is confident the company’s quick-build solution will make it a leading contender for the contract.
Last year Minaean achieved another coup when they set up a display for the Times Media Group. Minaean developed a pre-fabricated bus shelter that can be erected on the street overnight to avoid any disruption in traffic.
“Suddenly they came up with a contract of 200 bus shelters,” says Pinto, adding that in 2008 Minaean installed 350 bus shelters in Mumbai, Bangalore and Punjab.
A recent press release announcing the award of another prototype contract to Minaean states the “Indian outdoor advertising industry is estimated to be valued at about CAD $500 million... and is growing at 20 per cent per annum.”
Clearly, the opportunities in India are enormous, says Pinto.
Indeed, the growing middle class and the massive infrastructure growth that is coming will mean, along with the development of roads, the need for more bus shelters, gas stations, overpasses and other structures that Minaean can build.
Pinto is not only ensuring Minaean is well positioned to take advantage of that growth, but also plans to go after bigger infrastructure projects. To that end he is now working to create a consortium of Canadian companies to take Canadian experience and expertise in highway and bridge construction and road management to India. Of course, Minaean will be part of that process, he says.
“It’s a long-term goal I’m embarking on,” he says. But the rewards will be well worth it, he adds, “Because the consortium then can bid for larger projects which are in excess of $100 million.”
Pinto is prepared for the long road ahead. In fact he’s encouraged that the pace at which India is adopting change, while still slow, is improving.
“The country has grown tremendously since [1993]. The GDP is growing, the investment restrictions have been lifted to a great deal, foreign companies are streaming in for business as BRIC countries are leading the global economic upswing.”
Doing business in India is not easy, he says. You have to be very determined because it can be discouraging at times. You also have to be prepared to be there on the ground. For Pinto, that meant travelling back and forth to India every couple of months. But that has also improved. “Now it’s every three or four months and for a shorter period.”
But compared to commanding a ship where anything can happen at any time, leading a company on the other side of the planet “is no big deal,” he says.
It may not be as difficult, but it is definitely exciting, says Captain Mervyn Pinto, because every time he looks to India, he sees nothing but opportunity on the horizon.
|
|
