Friday, December 21, 2007

Tata Group set to steer Jaguar, Land Rover




If the Tata Group does drive off with US auto giant Ford’s iconic British brands Jaguar and Land Rover, it would be another feather in its cap after buying European steelmaker Corus earlier this year.

British media reports say loss-making Ford could announce as early as Friday that the Tatas, reported to have bid around $2 billion, had been named the top choice for buying the storied luxury carmakers.

It would be the year-end icing on the cake for the Tata Group, which bought Corus for $13.7 billion in January, and also another sign that cash-flush corporate India’s foreign acquisition drive has shifted into high gear.

Tata’s chief executive, 69-year-old Ratan Tata, credited with transforming a sprawling, unfocused tea-to-trucks conglomerate into a global player, had long promised the group would “spread its wings far beyond India.”

If the family-run conglomerate gets Jaguar and Land Rover, it will be in the unusual position of manufacturing two of the world’s most prestigious cars as well as one of the world’s cheapest.
Tata officials in New Delhi had no comment on Thursday on an article in Britain’s Birmingham Post quoting an unnamed source at Land Rover as saying: “It is definitely Tata.”

They come from a manufacturing background, and the experience of other people they have taken over has been good. They are cash-rich and they can afford the price, as well as invest in the future,” Quinn was quoted as saying.

On Thursday the Tata Group was named the world’s third most accountable and transparent company by Britain’s One World Trust, an independent research group. General Electric and GlaxoSmithKline were rated numbers one and two.

Cheers!!!!
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