NRB shifts gears with strategic leap into industrial bearings via Italian partner Unitec
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. MUMBAI : NRB Bearings Ltd, India’s largest maker of needle roller bearings, signalled one of the most defining shifts in its nearly six-decade history with the announcement of a strategic joint venture with Italy-based Unitec Group on 1 December. The partnership marks the company’s formal entry into industrial cylindrical roller bearings—an expansion long envisioned by chairperson and managing director Harshbeena Zaveri, but delayed due to factors rooted in her family’s business legacy.
For NRB, this is not merely a joint venture, it is a reclamation of ambition. Zaveri joined NRB in 1986 after graduating from Wellesley College, choosing to begin on the shop floor at the company’s Thane plant rather than in an office. Those early years shaped her convictions about manufacturing excellence and the need to build research and development (R&D) capabilities in India, rather than importing them.
“Innovation in India, not just Make in India" has been her refrain for years, and she has built NRB’s identity around engineering depth, endurance testing, and co-development with customers. Yet even as she expanded NRB into a global supplier of highly engineered automotive bearings, she observed a self-imposed boundary: the industrial business. That space belonged to her brother’s company, and out of respect for her father’s demarcation—and despite the absence of a formal non-compete—she stayed out.
The death of her father and a subsequent dispute over ownership created further complexity, keeping NRB from exploiting a market segment it was technically capable of serving. That chapter ended earlier in 2025 when she bought out her brother and consolidated family ownership. Freed from inherited
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