Today is a historic moment for Tata Motors, which has been negotiating the deal since January to buy Jaguar and Land Rover. Tata Motors buying out Jaguar and Land Rover for $2.3 billion has been hailed by domestic industry, including Tata’s competitors.

Just hours after Tata issued the announcement to confirm that it had purchased Jaguar Land Rover, comprising brands, plants and Intellectual Property Rights”, top persons at Unite, the UK’s largest trades union, said the deal “is really good news for the UK automotive industry”.

“I am delighted, not only as an industrialist and a person from automotive industry but also as an Indian, that Tata Motors has got the deal.” said Chairman of Bajaj Auto Rahul Bajaj.

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“The Tata-Jaguar agreement is once again a landmark in the march of Indian businesses. Done in a calm, transparent, ethical manner, it reflects the essence of the Tata philosophy. Kudos to Tatas for this leap ahead.” said Director General of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) S S Mehta.

Tata Motors is India’s largest vehicle maker. The Tata group has 98 companies in its fold, with operations in over 80 countries and exports to 120 nations. The Group, which has 27 publicly listed enterprises, has a market capitalisation of $56.52 billion and a workforce of 2,89,500. Its revenue is equivalent to 3.2 per cent of India’s GDP.

Source Credit - Economic Times 

Indian TATA motors secured Jaguar and Land Rover by buying British luxury icons from Ford Motor Company for $2.3 billion, less than half what it paid in 1989 and 2000 respectively.

Ford acquired Jaguar in 1989 for $2.5 billion and Land Rover in 2000 for $2.73 billion as part of a European-luxury strategy it began by buying Aston Martin in 1987. It sold Aston last year, according to bloomberg.

“We are very pleased at the prospect of Jaguar and Land Rover being a significant part of our automotive business… and will endeavour to preserve and build on their heritage and competitiveness, keeping their identities intact,” said Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata.

Indian rating agency ICRA assigned highest credit quality rating (A1+) to Tata Motors Finance Ltd’s Rs 2,000 crore short term debt.

Earlier in this January ICRA had placed the company’s long-term and short-term ratings on negative watch.

Since Tata emerged as the preferred Jaguar and Land Rover acquisitions bidder, business and financial risk profile of the company is at high stake.

ICRA said it could take further rating action when the details of the proposed acquisition are made available and if the proposed acquisition falls through, the rating watch is likely to be removed for the debt programmes of Tata Motors and Tata Motors Finance.

Tata Motors is seeking loans of about $3bn to fund its planned purchase of Ford Motor Co’s luxury UK brands Jaguar and Land Rover. Tata has assigned Citigroup and JPMorgan, its financial advisers on the acquisition.

(Jaguar XK Convertible in Liquid Silver - Photo Credit: jaguar)

India’s Tata Motors is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding in the next two weeks, reported reuters on Friday. The loan, expected to be mostly short-term bridge financing, is larger than the expected purchase price.