Geoff Polites, CEO of Jaguar Land Rover who is credited with successfully turning around the company and steering it through its $2.3 billion sale to Tata Motors, has died.Polites, 60, breathed his last in Melbourne after battling serious illness for two years. Ford Australia president Bill Osborne said Polites had battled ill health for the past two years but remained determined to return the Ford-owned Jaguar and Land Rover brands to profitability.
India's Tata Motors could sign a deal with Ford to buy the US carmaker's Jaguar and Land Rover marques as early as next Wednesday or Thursday, people familiar with the deal said on Tuesday.
Sunday Times says top European official in sight. The current chief executive is Geoff Polities, an Australian car industry veteran.
Barely days before it launches the world's cheapest car, Tatas were on Wednesday named the preferred bidder for Ford's British luxury brands -- Jaguar and Land Rover.
The report quoted unnamed sources at Land Rover as saying, "It is definitely Tata. There is one final meeting and so long as there is no last minute hitches, which are not expected, then an announcement will be made on Friday." The final details would be worked out in the next six weeks, it added. The report also quoted a union official as saying that Mahindra's bid fell flat because of links to a private equity firm as the Indian firm was working with Apollo.
Less than a year after acquiring Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus, Tata Group appears close to taking over the reins of Ford's British marques - Land Rover and Jaguar, for which it is believed to have submitted a detailed offer of more than $2 billion. The home-grown business conglomerate is understood to be leading the race for the two brands at close of second-round of bidding on Friday, media reports said.
While declining to comment on the intended takeover bid for JLR by Tata Motors, another group company, Myers said the relationship was close to four years old.
Ford Motor Co on Wednesday said it expects the sale of its two European marques Jaguar and Land Rover, in which India's Tata Motors has evinced interest, to be through either by this year-end or early next year.
The Tatas are not alone in the race to take over British car makers Land Rover and Jaguar. Apart from the Tatas, three private equity funds and two other trading companies are expected to join the race for the British luxury car makers.
'As Tata Steel we will obviously use group-level leverage to make progress where we want.'
Tata Group on Wednesday announced an investment of 4 billion pounds (about Rs 42,500 crore) in setting up a flagship factory to make batteries for Jaguar Land Rover as well as other manufacturers. Tata Sons, owner of JLR, chose Bridgwater in Somerset in southwest England for the gigafactory over a rival location in Spain. The gigafactory, at 40GWh, will be one of the largest in Europe and Tata's first outside of India, the conglomerate said in a statement.
S&P Global Ratings has upgraded its long-term ratings on Tata Motors to speculative grade 'BB' with stable outlook on earnings improvements and potential deleveraging. The ratings agency had earlier placed Tata Motors in 'BB-'. As per S&P ratings, a BB grade is less vulnerable in the near-term but faces major ongoing uncertainties to adverse business, financial and economic conditions.
ISRO on Friday said it has made efforts to establish communication with its lunar mission Chandrayaan-3's lander Vikram and rover Pragyan to ascertain their 'wake-up condition' after they had been put into sleep mode early this month -- but no signals have been received from them as of now.
The space agency said the Mission Operations Complex (MOX), located at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru, is buzzing with energy and excitement.
Businesses have been reluctant to talk about contingency plans for Brexit
Tata Motors has acquired Ford's British marquees Jaguar and Land Rover for $2.30 billion in an all cash deal, sealing a deal that it pursued for nine months. Under the deal, Tata would continue to source engine from Ford, which would be paying about $600 million toward the pension liabilities of Jaguar-Land Rover employees.
Chandrayaan-3 mission's Pragyan rover on Wednesday clicked an image of the Vikram lander, ISRO said.
The Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscope instrument onboard 'Pragyan' rover of Chandrayaan-3 has 'unambiguously confirmed the presence of sulphur in the lunar surface near south pole, through first-ever in-situ measurements,' ISRO said on Tuesday.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), ISRO said, "Chandrayaan-3 Mission. Chandrayaan-3 Rover to MOX, ISTRAC, Moon walk begins!"
Speaking to PTI, Somanath said, "(The lander landed) perfectly in the intended site. The landing location was marked as 4.5 km x 2.5 km -- I think on that space, and the exact centre of that was identified as the location of landing. It landed within 300 metres of that point. That means it is well within the area identified for landing."
Its duties include experiments to further understand the lunar surface.
'Interim Budget has ignited the entrepreneurial spirit.'
ISRO on Monday said a two-way communication between the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter and Chandrayaan-3's Lunar Module has been established.
'The ISRO has done enough simulations and also redundancies have been built in so that chances of such failure are remote. Still, we have to keep our fingers crossed'
Auto industry volumes have grown by 2.5 per cent overall, led by domestic sales of three-wheelers, two-wheelers and passenger vehicles (PVs) in the first quarter of this financial year. Analysts predict an 18 per cent growth in revenues for automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and profit growth of 69 per cent year-on-year (YoY). However, on a sequential basis, a decline in revenues as well as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) margins is expected.
So, if ISRO is able to revive them as the Sun rises on the Moon again, information that is derived from experiments that could once again be conducted by the Chandrayaan-3 payloads would be a "bonus".
India is attempting to soft-land a rover on the moon and will attempt, at some point next year hopefully, sending humans into orbit. All of this makes an exciting time for space around the world, notes Aakar Patel.
Somanath thanked all those who prayed for the mission's success, and ISRO veterans like A S Kiran Kumar , the space agency's former chief.
People gathered in educational institutions, offices, city squares and religious places to watch the Indian Space Research Organisation's live telecast of Chandrayaan-3's final descent to the uncharted surface of the lunar south pole.
The Propulsion Module (PM) of Chandrayaan-3 has been moved from an orbit around the Moon to an orbit around Earth, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said, terming the operation a unique experiment.
The new year will witness two unmanned missions under the "Gaganyaan" project, deep ocean exploration project, "Samudrayaan" and many more.
An entire nation waited, praying and hoping fervently, as the countdown to touch down on the moon wound to a slow close on Wednesday with many thousands gathering in schools, places of worship and elsewhere and scientists doing last minute checks to ensure Chandrayaan-3 makes a soft landing on the lunar south pole.
This eagerly anticipated event will be broadcast live on August 23, starting from 17:27 Hrs IST on multiple platforms, including the ISRO Website, its YouTube channel, ISRO's Facebook page, and DD National TV channel.
The epic ascent saw New Range Rover Sport resist the surging torrent of water flowing down the ramp of the Karahnjukar Dam -- the biggest of its kind in the world -- at a rate of 750 tonnes per minute.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission that aims for a soft landing on the moon's surface, paving the way for future interplanetary missions, carries six payloads that would help ISRO understand the lunar soil and also get the blue planet's photographs from the lunar orbit.
Weighing 320 tonne at lift-off, the vehicle used larger strap-on motors to achieve higher payload capability.
Tata Motors' 2022-23 (FY23) January-March quarter (fourth quarter, or Q4) results were better than Street estimates, with strong showing across Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), as well as commercial and passenger vehicle businesses in the domestic market. The company posted its highest consolidated top line and operating profit, with growth of 35 per cent and 46.5 per cent, respectively, over the year-ago quarter. While the top line was aided by a 49 per cent growth in the JLR unit, all key segments reported margin expansion.
Lander Module of Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft comprising the lander and rover has successfully separated from the Propulsion Module, Indian Space Research Organisation said on Thursday.
The rover will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility.
From The New York Times to BBC and The Guardian to The Washington Post, the historic event in India's space programme on Wednesday made headlines across the globe.
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