According to a report on Bloomberg, Tata Motors, due to the global credit crisis, is likely to reconsider its plan to raise US$600 million from overseas markets. The company may also decide to go back on its earlier proposal to list its shares on the Tokyo stock exchange.
By June 2009, Tata Motors needs to raise funds to replace a US$3 billion bridge loan, which the company took to purchase Jaguar and LandRover. Tata Motors paid US$2.4 billion earlier this year, to buy JLR from Ford.
Last month, Tata Motors closed a rights offering of shares to raise more than Rs 41 billion, to help fund the JLR purchase. The issue was fully subscribed, including Rs 30 billion of investments by the company’s promoters and Rs 3 billion being arranged by the underwriters to the issue.
Drop in SUV sales in most markets have forced Tata Motor’s owned Land Rover to cut production and redeploy 300 workers, The Sunday Telegraph has reported. “Two shifts have been lost at Solihull, the main Land Rover production centre, and three will be cut next month at the Halewood factory on Merseyside, where the JaguarX-Type is assembled,” a report in The Sunday Telegraph said.
The company has transferred around 300 workers from Solihull to the Jaguar’s production line at Castle Broomwich because of no work. Tata Motors is reviewing the sales performance on a montly basis with Land Rover to keep production in line with the sales.
The sales have nose dived by over 31% in USA alone and it could have been worse if not for the brand’s strong performance in emerging markets like Russia and China. The sales are down just 3% compared to the same period last year. The report also added “Tata was forced to ditch the rights issue planned to help finance the 1.15 billion pound paid to Ford for JLR due to share price weakness. Tata will look at asset sales as an alternative.”
Tata Motors is finalizing plans to bring Land Rover to India in a big way, and also looking at the possibility of selling Jaguar CBUs here, albeit on a smaller scale. ‘Land Rover is already present in India in a small way. We understand from our colleagues in Jaguar Land Rover [JLR] that they are looking at expanding Land Rover’s footprint in the Indian market in a fairly aggressive manner in the near future,’ says Rajiv Dube, President - Passenger Cars, Tata Motors.
Earlier this year, Tata Motors had acquired Jaguar and Land Rover at a cost of over US$2 billion. Land Rover has dealerships in Mumbai and Gurgaon, and Tata Motors sees a growing market for Land Rover SUVs in the country. It also sees sales potential for Jaguar’s luxury cars in India, though probably on a smaller scale than Land Rover.
In the meanwhile, Tata Motors is also preparing to launch its next-generation Indigo and its Safari-Sumo crossover - the Xover - which was first shown at the 2005 Geneva Motor Show. However, no time-frame has yet been announced for these new launches.
Jaguar is seeing the benefit from its pending takeover by Indian automaker Tata Motors with its first monthly sales rise in nearly two years. The British sports car brand appears to have turned around its sales decline last month with a nearly 70 percent increase in sales across Europe. It sold 4,047 cars in Europe during April, up 69.6 percent from the 2,386 it sold in April 2007, according to figures from vehicle manufacturers’ association ACEA. The figures were the first monthly sales increase for Jaguar since July 2006. Jaguar sales rose in the first four months by 0.4 percent to 12,629 units.
