BUS11Business/Business/NationalPawan Kumar Ruia steps down from Jessop boardKolkata, Sep 30 IANS Pawan Kumar Ruia stepped down from his post of executive member on the board of Jessop & Co Ltd as he is busy with overseas acquisitions and expansion of the Ruia Group, a top company official said here Tuesday."Mr Ruia is busy in global acquisitions and expansion of the Ruia Group, that is why he stepped down from being an executive member in the board of Jessop & Co Ltd," S.C. Saxena, managing director of Jessop & Co Ltd, said at the company's annual general meeting.Ruia, however, continues to be the chairman of the Ruia Group.The Ruia Group acquired the sick heavy engineering & infrastructure company Jessop & Co in 2003 and turned it into a profit making business. Ruia plans to invest Rs.3-4 billion for brownfield expansion of Jessop in the next couple of years.The company's profit after tax in 2007-08 stood at Rs.1.87 billion against Rs.1.10 billion in 2006-7."Jessop has got a good fortune and a good future for expansion and our order book position is getting very strong," Saxena said.The company has already got orders worth around Rs.1.5 billion till date in the current fiscal and is expecting Rs.3 billion further orders during the current fiscal."We have got Rs.50 crore Rs.500 million order from a subsidiary of Emirates Trading Agency ETA of Dubai," he said.The company plans to ramp up its capacity by manufacturing 500 wagons per month at an investment of Rs.3.50 billion. At present, it manufactures 200 wagons per month. This capacity expansion will happen in another one year, he said.The company is eyeing joint ventures with multinational companies to start manufacturing of metro and passenger coaches.It is also looking at dilution of promoters' shareholding. At present, the promoters' shareholding is 94 percent, which it wants to bring down to 75 percent.Rest of the shareholding is with Government of India at four percent and two percent with financial institutions and individuals.--Indo-Asian News ServiceAG/arj/vt379 Words30091712