Tata acquired British brands Jaguar & Land Rover (JLR) in June 2008 at a price of $2.3 billion from Ford.
Sales are down across the globe and JLR reported a reduction of 0.7 per cent to 128,953 units in the second quarter of 2019. Of which, Jaguar’s retail sales reduced by 1 per cent while Land Rover were up by 4.2 per cent.
Amid talks of a sale, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, cleared the air during an interview to Bloomberg saying, “We’re not going to sell (JLR). Auto is a core business for us. From revenue terms, auto is our largest company.”
Natarajan, however, said that they are always looking for partnerships for JLR.
Tata Motors itself had a bad year as the Indian automobile industry is facing its worst slump ever. JLR too had to cut down on several jobs globally and announce a $3.2 billion savings programme.
The Tata Sons chairman added that the company doesn’t want deals where a stake is sold and the company has no say. “We are not financial investors, Tata group, we run companies,” he said.
