The steam-turbine manufacturer, which shows up on Forbes Asia’s Ideal Under A Billion checklist for the 2nd year straight, intends to three-way profits in 5 years. Yet competitors are transforming on the warmth.
This tale belongs to Forbes Asia’s insurance coverage of Best Under A Billion 2025, which highlights 200 Asia-Pacific public business with much less than $1 billion in profits and regular top- and fundamental development. See the complete checklist, arranged alphabetically, right here
T riveni Generator’s 10-hectare manufacturing facility facility in the Sompura commercial belt, concerning 48 kilometers northwest of India’s technology resources, Bangalore, is a stunning landscape of pink-and-yellow blooming bushes and a wealth of mango, coconut and sapodilla trees. Yet the heart of this green school is an additional environment-friendly area– a dazzling, 10,000-square-meter production line creating blades and blades along with setting up bays and examination beds for vapor generators.
Powered by either nonrenewable fuel sources or renewables such as biomass, these gigantic makers make use of vapor to rotate a blades to produce power. The firm concentrates on generators of approximately 100 megawatts (MW), creating 300 to 350 makers a year at its 2 manufacturing facilities (the secondly lies in an additional Bangalore suburban area). They are released in a selection of sectors, such as concrete, steel and chemicals along with by independent power manufacturers. (Larger generators of greater than 100MW compose greater than 90% of the worldwide vapor generator market.)
Triveni Generator’s production and repair center at Sompura in Bangalore.
Thanks To Triveni Generator
Amidst the stable hum of the manufacturing facility, Nikhil Sawhney, the firm’s vice chairman and handling supervisor, exposes his passions: “In the following 5 years we’ll greater than dual our profits,” he states. “I do not see why we can not triple it additionally.” In the year finished March 31, Triveni’s profits leapt 21% from the previous year to a document 20.1 billion rupees ($ 237 million) and earnings increased by a 3rd to 3.6 billion rupees, making it a place on the very best Under A Billion checklist of business for the 2nd year straight.
Because obtaining entailed with procedures 14 years back, this fourth-generation successor of a Delhi clan with origins in the sugar service has actually assisted change Triveni from a greatly residential attire right into a remarkable worldwide gamer. Over that duration, market cap has actually risen to $2.4 billion from $262 million and it currently has actually 6,000 set up systems in 80 nations, up from 2,500 in 30 markets in 2011. It is the No. 2 gamer in the worldwide market in the up-to-100MW sector, after Siemens Power, a spin-off of German gigantic Siemens, according to U.S.-based power knowledge company McCoy Power Information. “It’s been a trip based upon a great deal of emphasis and self-control,” the 48-year-old states.
Worldwide Startup
Because accelerating its worldwide growth in 2010, Triveni Generator has actually motored its means to the No. 2 place out there for its items, tracking just megabrand Siemens Power.
* Based upon variety of systems set up in 2024
Resource: McCoy Power Information, Triveni Generator
Yet Sawhney still has rate bumps to browse. The steam-turbine service is going through fast adjustment amidst the change to cleaner power; competitors is extreme not simply from Siemens however various other international gamers, such as Brazil’s TGM Turbinas and the U.K.’s Baker Hughes; and the hazard of tolls is rattling his united state growth strategies, making him really mindful that he have to maintain introducing. “We require to create brand-new items and brand-new modern technologies and develop more recent market sectors constantly,” Sawhney states. “We are really paranoid as a firm.”
Because going public in 2011, shares of Triveni have actually soared concerning 1,600%, thrusting Sawhney’s daddy, Dhruv Sawhney, under whom the $1.8 billion ton of money is provided, right into the billionaire rankings, beginning in 2022. The fast-growing generator service make up two-thirds of his total assets of $2 billion, with the remainder mainly from a risk in the tradition firm Triveni Design & & Industries, which Sawhney’s older sibling, Tarun, 51, runs as vice chairman and handling supervisor. (Their daddy is chairman and handling supervisor of both business.)
Dhruv Sawhney, Triveni Generator’s chairman and handling supervisor.
Thanks To Triveni Generator
Triveni Generator “has a leading setting in the residential market, an increasing share in the worldwide market, and solid technical expertise,” according to Teena Virmani, a study expert at Mumbai-based economic solutions strong Motilal Oswal. “It’s additionally really effective economically,” she includes. It leads in India with a 55% market share in profits terms, complied with by Siemens Power India with 40%, according to the company.
While the residential market for vapor generators acquired 10% in profits terms in monetary 2025, partially because of nationwide political elections and macroeconomic anxieties, Virmani anticipates need to restore in monetary 2027. She mentions a 120% enter the firm’s residential queries– taken into consideration a forerunner to orders– in monetary 2025; worldwide queries increased 30%. Motilal Oswal approximates compound yearly development of 19% for both profits and after-tax revenue over the following 2 years.
Cranking Up
Triveni Generator’s profits has actually expanded at a CAGR of 30% over the previous 4 .
finishes March 31
Resource: Triveni Generator
The worldwide market for vapor generators approximately 100MW omitting China and Japan decreased concerning 28% in gigawatt terms from 2014 to 2024, according to McCoy. Yet “we do not believe this is reflective of the lasting market,” states Sawhney. Triveni has actually maintained its energy, and exports– mostly to Europe, the Center East and Southeast Asia– made up virtually fifty percent of complete profits in the year to end-March, up from 11% in 2011.
Sawhney states greater than 70% of its generators make use of renewables, such as biomass. This remains in line with information from McCoy that makers powered by renewables made up virtually three-quarters of the worldwide market for up-to-100MW vapor generators in 2024, up from 42% in 2014, while those utilizing nonrenewable fuel sources was up to 22% from 36%. In an additional nod to sustainability, Triveni has tools that transform metropolitan waste right into power. Most of its makers additionally enter into consolidated heat-and-power systems, which catch waste warmth from producing power and utilize it for various other commercial functions, enhancing power effectiveness.
” We are really paranoid as a firm.”
Triveni’s crucial transforming factor remained in 2010, when the household, which went to the moment mainly making just little generators of under 30MW, accelerated its worldwide passions by developing a joint endeavor with General Electric to make larger makers for abroad markets. The makers were created in India with GE marketing them abroad. The joint endeavor assisted drive worldwide growth till 2019 when the companions went their different means, with Triveni ultimately getting GE’s risk.
Regardless of the break up, exports have actually leapt threefold considering that Triveni went solo. “Our competition because market [for 30MW-100MW turbines] is substantial,” Sawhney states. Worldwide sales obtained an increase in 2016, when he relocated right into making generators for the oil-and-gas sector that abide by security, performance and various other criteria established by the American Oil Institute (API), a U.S.-based profession team. Triveni currently provides API-compliant makers to the Center East, Southeast Asia, Central and South America, and Europe. Virmani explains the marketplace as affordable however rewarding and states the firm’s “technical know-how and faster turn-around abilities” make it well-positioned to catch a bigger share.
Nikhil Sawhney, Vice Chairman & & Handling Supervisor of Triveni Generator.
Harshith Dambekodi For Forbes ASIA
S awhney’s financial investments in developing technical expertise ended up being an additional rewarding wager. The firm currently holds around 400 licenses, commercial layouts, hallmarks and copyrights and present 4 to 5 brand-new items a year. It has long-lasting research study collaborations with colleges in India and abroad, consisting of the Indian Institute of Scientific Research in Bangalore and the College of Cambridge in the U.K., Sawhney’s university. “Nobody accredits world-beating modern technology,” he states. “We need to develop it ourselves.” Capex for monetary 2026 is evaluated 1.7 billion rupees and besides R&D will certainly be utilized for increasing screening and setting up facilities. “We can make use of money for development [via M&A], however we do not wish to expand like that,” Sawhney describes.
The R&D initiatives have actually equated right into even more service. In January, in cooperation with an Italian firm, it racked up a 2.9-billion-rupee electric power storage space job from state-run power-generating firm NTPC. The system presses industrial-grade carbon monoxide two right into a fluid state that can be maintained under stress and launched as required. The benefit of the method is that power can be saved without using unusual planets such as lithium, which is utilized by battery storage space manufacturers, Sawhney describes. While he is positive concerning this modern technology, he states scaling up may be a difficulty. “It’s very easy to introduce and model in India as a result of the inexpensive, however … it is tough to scale up due to the fact that individuals are risk-averse,” he describes.
Sawhney recognized at an early stage that a person means to separate Triveni from its competitors would certainly be to concentrate on aftermarket solutions. The firm has collaborations with neighborhood workshops and solution centres to fix and recondition not simply its very own versions however additionally those of various other suppliers. “Because we deal with a brand name discount rate when contrasted to worldwide business, our whole offering requires to be much better, we need to up the solution video game, we need to up the reaction time,” he insists. Aftermarket solutions have actually climbed to 32% of profits in monetary 2025 from 16% in 2011.
” Nobody accredits world-beating modern technology. We need to develop it ourselves.”
An additional crucial benefit for Triveni is that it can supply economical tailored items. When Gurgaon-based JK Concrete was buying a vapor generator for a concrete plant in 2022, Triveni had the ability to incorporate a brand-new 18MW tool right into the firm’s existing generator deck, transmission, generator and various other components. “They truly went above and beyond,” states JK Concrete’s chief executive officer Madhav Singhania. “Nobody else might have created the kind of remedy that they used.”
JK Concrete states the refit expense much less than half the quantity they would certainly have needed to pay to an off-the-shelf supplier, that would certainly have changed the entire system. Singhania touched Triveni once more in 2024, looking for a 23MW vapor generator for an additional manufacturing facility. Sawhney states that 90% of their clients return with repeat orders.
The firm invested $10 million broadening in the united state, consisting of opening up a 9,300-square-meter setting up plant in Houston in 2015, closer to its oil-and-gas customers. Yet Sawhney states the firm is “resizing” its united state passions despite possible united state profession tolls. “The enhanced unpredictability has actually not resulted in get conversions,” he describes, including that the firm may switch over to utilizing a regional supply chain in the united state to make generators stateside if tolls are burdensome. The united state device added much less than 1% to profits in monetary 2025.
The firm concentrates on generators of approximately 100 megawatts (MW), creating 300 to 350 makers a year at its 2 manufacturing facilities in Bangalore.
Thanks To Triveni Generator
The capacity to pivot might become part of Sawhney’s DNA. His great-grandfather started a sugar-making service in 1932, after that branched right into sugar equipment in 1961 and vapor generators in 1968, which initially were powered by bagasse, the deposit from squashing walking cane stalks. In 1973, Sawhney’s daddy signed up with the sugar-equipment production and design service run by his uncle prior to combining it with his very own daddy’s sugar mills in 2000 to create Triveni Design & & Industries. The patriarch is mostly attributed with improving the procedures.
Sawhney and his sibling, Tarun, matured in Delhi, where the primary sugar service was headquartered. Like their daddy, they both mosted likely to the elite, all-boys Doon boarding college in Uttarakhand in north India. Sawhney and his sibling additionally both complied with in their daddy’s steps by going to Cambridge, where Sawhney gained a master’s level in business economics. In 2002 he headed to the College of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Institution for an M.B.A.
” There was never ever any type of stress to operate in the household service … my father pressed me and my sibling to obtain outdoors direct exposure,” Sawhney states. He interned at Nomura and Barings throughout his summertimes at Cambridge, however after service college he signed up with the sugar-trading workdesk at Triveni Design prior to relocating 2007 to its generators department, which was ultimately dilated to create Triveni Generator. While the dollar still quits with his daddy, Sawhney states he has functional liberty. “We are really straightened in regards to the bigger objectives,” he states.
So will the future generation be associated with business also? “Why not? If I obtain the qualities,” quips Sawhney’s only youngster, 16-year-old Zahan, that’s headed to the U.K. for A-level researches. He had actually accompanied his father to the Sompura manufacturing facility in July. “It would certainly be my hope that he collaborates with business due to the fact that he locates it interesting and pertinent,” states Sawhney. “He can take an organization that has a tradition and a commercial consumer base and make it a lot more pertinent to a bigger globe.”
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