City-based Raman Fibre Science (RFS), a technology and innovation company, was bought over by the US-based Hollingsworth & Vose Company (H&V) for an undisclosed amount.

Raman Fibre Science is a technology and innovation-driven company specialising in wet-laid, fibre-based materials for filtration media and battery separator applications. The company was started by Mysore industrialist Aroon Raman after he sold the hugely successful Raman Boards in Mysore to ABB of Switzerland.

Speaking to Som, Aroon Raman said after he sold the previous company, he and a few of the old staff from Raman Boards with strong research and development skills formed RFS to create unique composite materials.

Aroon says, “We wanted to create something unique, so we decided to come up with a new battery separator material.” He also says, “the low interest loans we availed from the Department of Science and Technology, which was about 5%, helped us scale up and within a few years, we had our material and marketed it to battery makers, not only in India but other parts of the world.” Speaking of how H&V noticed them, Aroon says, “H&V is the biggest company in the world making composite materials; they noticed us as our product was unique and they also wanted to enter India and we were a perfect fit with good R&D products”.

Commenting on the acquisition, H&V CEO Val Hollingsworth in a release said, “RFS has developed some very unique and innovative products. Also for us India represents an exciting market and RFS Mysore’s location and team provide H&V a strong, on-the-ground operational base with which we can grow our India presence.”

Aroon Raman, who will continue to be on the Board of Directors said, “We are both privately held companies with world-class technical capabilities” and added, “now RFS has only one production line but soon a second one will come up.”

Aroon also informed that RFS Mysore is headed for a massive expansion and will provide lots of jobs. More importantly he made it clear that RFS is all set to become H&V’s biggest low-cost innovation centre.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home>General News / Saturday , November 08th, 2014