Rico Auto is an engineering company that makes the metal innards of vehicles - the precision-cast aluminium and iron parts inside engines, transmissions and brakes that most drivers never see. It started in 1983 as a clutch supplier to India’s early two-wheeler and car makers, and has since grown into a single-source partner that takes a component from a drawing all the way to a finished, tested assembly, for everyone from Maruti Suzuki to BMW. That same “concept to delivery” approach - own the design, the tooling, the casting, the machining and the logistics - is now being applied beyond cars, into railways and defence, using the same factory floors and engineering muscle.
Business segments
Four engines at different stages - a precision-components cash cow that feeds two specialist material and wheel platforms, and a defence-and-railways bet built on the same manufacturing backbone.
1. Aluminium and ferrous precision components: the factory that supplies the world’s carmakers
Rico earns its living by casting and machining roughly 400 different aluminium and iron parts - from clutch assemblies to electric-motor housings - and selling them directly to global automakers under long-term contracts.
- Paid per part, with raw-material costs passed through - the company sells components to OEMs at a negotiated price per unit, and most customer contracts allow it to pass aluminium and other raw-material price changes directly to the buyer, which protects margins from metal-price swings. It is now moving three-quarters of its customers by value to monthly raw-material settlements, making those pass-throughs faster.
- One roof, every step - Rico runs 15 fully integrated plants across eight Indian states, housing aluminium die casting, ferrous casting, precision machining and assembly under one roof, so a customer can hand over a design and receive a finished, tested component without the company ever outsourcing a critical step.
- The customer list is the moat - the company supplies more than 35 global OEMs and Tier-1 names, including Toyota, Maruti Suzuki, BMW, Cummins, Bosch, Stellantis and Hero, and is a single source supplier for export and domestic customers. New confirmed orders worth roughly ₹720 crores in peak annual sales - on top of current production - have been won from Maruti, Tata, Toyota and others.
- EVs are just another housing to machine - about 30% of recent new-order nominations by value were for electric and hybrid vehicles, and the company has been shipping EV parts since 2019, making transmission housings, motor housings and differential cases that use the same casting and machining skills as its ICE parts.
- Capacity freed without building walls - new process technologies have released casting capacity in both aluminium and iron, so future growth in machining and assembly can be added with less fresh investment in foundry equipment.
2. Friction materials: the clutch-facing specialist India used to import
Rico claims to be the first in India to make paper-based friction material for clutches - a component competitors previously had to buy from abroad - and now supplies it from dedicated plants in Gurugram and Chennai.
- An import substitute inside the clutch - the in-house R&D team developed the paper-type friction material indigenously, so Indian two-wheeler and CVT makers no longer need to source it from overseas suppliers.
- Testing feeds production - the subsidiary runs a state-of-the-art R&D and test centre focused on clutch assemblies, CVT and brake-shoe friction, which lets it qualify new materials quickly for OEM programmes.
3. Two-wheeler alloy wheels: a lightweight platform for scooters and motorcycles
Through its 91.74%-held subsidiary Rico Jinfei Wheels, Rico casts aluminium alloy wheels for Hero, Bajaj and Honda - a business born from a Chinese joint venture and now consolidated under one roof.
- Joint venture turned subsidiary - the wheel business began as a partnership with China’s Jinfei, and over time Rico bought control, later merging in its oil-and-water-pump unit and a casting entity to create a single alloy-wheel subsidiary.
- Lightweight sells on two wheels - the wheels are designed for scooters, motorcycles and electric two-wheelers, where shaving weight off unsprung mass improves ride and range, making alloy an upgrade over steel.
- Powered partly by the sun - the Manesar plant that makes the wheels carries 450 KW of rooftop solar, trimming energy costs and carbon footprint on every rim produced.
4. Aerospace, defence and railways: the non-auto bet on government contracts
Rico has taken its precision-machining capability into adjacent regulated industries - making fuse assemblies for the military, shooting ranges for the DRDO, and now cast-iron railway inserts approved by RDSO - through a dedicated subsidiary and a new in-house vertical.
- A defence licence opens doors - the 100% subsidiary AAN Engineering holds an AS 9100D aerospace certification and a Defence Industrial License for ammunition manufacturing, and is empanelled with HAL, BEL, BEML and multiple ordnance factories, giving it the right to bid on sensitive government work.
- From fuses to firing ranges - AAN makes machined metal components for mechanical and electronic fuse assemblies at a capacity of 25,000 units a month, and also builds indoor containerised shooting ranges and baffle ranges using technology transferred from the DRDO.
- Railways start on the same shop floor - the new Railways vertical manufactures cast and machined components for tracks, wagons and carriages at the existing Dharuhera plant, and dispatched its first lot just days before the company’s most recent earnings call.
- A ₹200-crore order book in hand - the defence business alone holds about ₹200 crores of orders, with more bids in process, giving visibility on a revenue stream that is largely decoupled from auto-industry cycles.
Group structure and partners
Rico operates through a parent company that does the heavy manufacturing, flanked by subsidiaries that handle specialist materials, wheels, defence, overseas logistics and captive solar power.
- The parent, Rico Auto Industries, runs the 15-plant precision-components engine and the new Railways vertical.
- Rico Jinfei Wheels (91.74% held) now contains the alloy-wheel business and the former oil-and-water-pump unit after a series of mergers that simplified the group.
- AAN Engineering (100%) is the defence and aerospace arm, holding the licences and empanelments needed to supply state customers.
- Rico Friction Technologies (70%) runs the friction-materials operation.
- Rico Auto Industries Inc. (100%) provides warehousing and last-mile delivery for North American, Mexican and Brazilian customers, while the UK subsidiary has changed its business model to direct supply after Brexit and incurred a loss.
- Roop Ram Industries (26% associate) supplies 1.40 crore units of solar power a year under a long-term purchase agreement, saving the group roughly ₹1.80 crores annually.