The Sensex opened with a negative gap of 137 points at 15,950 on the back of weak cues from the global markets. The index, however, recovered and rebouned into the positive zone. It however, could not hold gains and slipped back into red to finish with a loss of 71 points at 16,016. The NSE Nifty ended almost unchanged at 4,830 - up a point. Tata Motors, Satyam, TCS, Ranbaxy, L&T, ICICI Bank, Reliance and Maruti were major losers. Hindalco, Cipla, RCom, ITC, etc were gainers.
Just hours after returning to Mumbai, Ravi Kant, managing director, and C Ramakrishnan, CFO of Tata Motors addressed the press on a conference call. Excerpts from the call.
For years, critics termed Tata's vehicle business as a millstone around the neck. But Group chairman Ratan Tata on Wednesday flattened their theory by taking the automobile venture to a new plane with the acquisition of British luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover.
American carmaker Ford is expected to announce on Wednesday the sale of its premium British car brands Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata Motors for a consideration of about $2 billion. Local media reported that the agreement will include a pledge by Ford to contribute to the two brands' pension fund, and by Tata to continue buying engines from Ford both sensitive points with trade unions.
Indian conglomerate Tata and US car maker Ford are expected to complete the deal of the latter's luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover within a few days, a media report said on Monday. According to The Guardian newspaper, Ford is expected to complete the sale of Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata "within a few days." However, neither side has put a price on the marques. The price tag is likely to get closer to $ 2 billion. The deal was prolonged due to complexities in the agreement.
Tata Motors has succeeded in securing a $3bn banking facility for its purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor, which should clear the way for the deal to close next week. Tata's ability to raise the money in spite of the turmoil on debt markets represents a vote of confidence in the Indian company and removes one of the last main obstacles to the deal.
Apart from SBI, the consortium will include leading entities like Citibank, Standard Chartered, BNP Paribas, JP Morgan, Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho Financial Group, a source closely connected to the development told PTI. The country's largest lender is also in talks with two-three public sector banks to be a part of the consortium, the source said. The company reported a loss of $12.7 billion for the fiscal ended December 30, 2006.
Tata Motors, the country's leading bus and truck maker and third-ranked passenger vehicle maker, plans to raise Rs 4,000 crore ($1 billion) by issuing appropriate securities in the foreign and domestic markets. Its board of directors at a meeting held on Tuesday gave an in-principle approval for the fund raising plan, to be raised in one or more tranches.
Takeover deals involving Indian companies were valued at a total of $8.3bn and numbered 153 in the first 10 weeks of this year, second only in non-Japan Asia to China, with $11.5bn deals numbering 372, according to figures from Thomson Financial. Even as the global credit crunch has damped the appetite among US groups for deals, cash-rich Indian groups have been able to continue their hunt.
Tata said this in an interview to L'Espresso, an Italian media company. An excerpt from the interview quoted Tata as saying, "I have two passions in my life -- cars and aircraft. I have always dreamt of being able to be a fighter pilot and I confirm my desire to participate in the shareholding of Ferrari."
The Tata Group, one of India's largest business houses, has made summer internship offers to 19 students of five leading US business schools this year
A body representing more than 1,000 entrepreneurs and executives from India and Pakistan has warned Alistair Darling, the chancellor, that his proposals for a tax crackdown on non-domiciled UK residents will lead to a much greater exodus from Britain than anticipated.
A century-old European bicycle brand gets a makeover under its new Indian owner. But is there room for yet another premium commuter bike?
Indian HC in UK is planning to outsource its visa application process from this May, to VFS Global.
Value of M&A deals made by India Inc this year will exceed its 2007 levels.
BSE-IT, capital goods, banks, real-estate led gains.
"Tata Motors, which is engaged in focused and detailed negotiations with Ford on the Jaguar Land Rover business, clarifies that the company has had no discussions with Fiat on deployment of technologies developed by Jaguar and Land Rover," the Mumbai-based company said in a statement.
The management of luxury carmaker Jaguar is 'entirely relaxed' about the prospects of Indian conglomerate Tata Group taking over the brand along with Land Rover. Earlier, this month, Ford had named Tata Motors, which is part of the Tata Group, as the preferred bidder for its British marquees -- Jaguar and Land Rover, but a final decision for the sale is yet to be taken.
The truth is that this is an impressive realisation of a corporate vision, a car long-promised, designed explicitly to hit a price point, and one that will meet the needs of poorer consumers. It is safer than a bicycle and cleaner than an old moped.
Mahindra & Mahindra, the Indian carmaker, confirmed Tuesday that it had pulled out of a $1bn joint venture with Renault and Nissan to set up a factory near Chennai.
Following it negotiations with Ford Motors for the aquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover, Tata Motors has been put under credit watch.
This rating action follows the announcement by Ford Motor Company (Ford, which has a rating-B3/Stable) naming Tata Motors the preferred buyer for Ford's luxury Jaguar and Land Rover car brands.
American auto giant Ford is likely to retain a stake and continue supplying engines and some of the components for Jaguar and Land Rover, even after the sale of the two British luxury brands, media reports said in the United Kingdom.
Tata Motors says the budget car will get run 25 kilometers to a litre and match Maruti 800 in performance.
BSE Consumer Durable, Realty, IT, Oil & Gas indices declined between 1-2%.
Tata Group on Wednesday accused the management of a US-listed luxury hotel group of a "fossilised frame of mind" for suggesting the Indian group's hotel chain would be an unsuitable strategic partner, and has demanded a public apology.
Not wanting to alienate other suitors including Mahindras, Ford may wait till the new year to announce the winner for its Jaguar and Land Rover brands, although Indian conglomerate Tatas have emerged as the top choice, media reports said in London on Friday. "Tata Motors is set to be chosen by Ford as the preferred bidder for Jaguar and Land Rover as early as Friday," a report in Financial Times said quoting people close to the situation.
India's corporate honchos spent a considerable time and energy this year at deal tables and executed over thousand transactions involving sale or purchase of equity stakes in their companies. On an average, every single day of 2007 saw about three deals being announced. This included a total of 1,047 merger and acquisitions as well as private equity deals for a total value of $68.32 billion (about Rs 2,75,000 crore).
"In situ chemical analysis and resource exploration is the main objective of Chandrayaan-II," said Mylaswamy Annadurai, Project Director of Chandrayaan-I. Annadurai visited Russia late last month to hold initial technical discussions on Chandrayaan-II, which is expected to be a much shorter mission than Chandrayaan-I, scheduled for launch on April 9, 2008.
People close to Indian carmakers Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra, and the buy-out group One Equity Partners, said on Tuesday that they expected Ford to respond imminently to their revised offers made last week.
At the core of the new joint venture is an attack on Tata Motors, which dominates the commercial vehicle sector in the world's fourth-largest market for heavy trucks.
An Indian ownership of Jaguar, one of the two luxury cars that the US car maker Ford is selling off, is not acceptable to the American dealers of the brand. Tata group and Mahindra & Mahindra are two of the front-runners for acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover, along with a private equity bidder, One Equity that is led by a former Ford CEO.
The UK-based BAE Systems has zeroed in on M&M and is believed to have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) after holding talks with at least two other leading corporates -- Tatas and Larsen and Toubro (L&T) for its Indian Land Systems project, sources close to the development said.
DLF is paying $200m for a controlling stake in Amanresorts. The deal comes at a time when Indian automotive companies Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra are bidding for Ford's luxury Jaguar and Land Rover marques.
'The English Game could have been truly great -- a precious glimpse into how the game went from being played by just the rich to one being eventually dominated by the masses,' observes Dhruv Munjal.
Indian business conglomerate Tata Group is mulling a listing at London bourses for a new entity, a British media report has said. But the group's headquarters in India on Monday dismissed any such move.
IT shares hold on to gains while power, metals lag.
Corus, which was acquired by Tata Steel for 6.2 billion in the beginning of this year, is eyeing global network alliances in automotive steel, as it aims to build a strong position in the international market.
Corus, which was acquired by Tata Steel for 6.2 billion pounds in the beginning of this year, is eyeing global network alliances in automotive steel, as it aims to build a strong position in the international market.
The Indica, known to Europeans as City Rover, was rolled out in November 2003 but did not succeed in the market where consumers are very choosy about the vehicles they buy.