Indian-Owned Jag, Land Rover?
August 30, 2007

It is looking increasingly likely that an automaker from India could become the new owner of the now Ford-owned Jaguar and Land Rover.

Two Indian automakers, Tata Motors Ltd., and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., are among the bidders for Jaguar and Land Rover, which Ford hopes to sell as a package. And they may well be the front-runners among the bidders.

The Financial Times reports that Mahindra & Mahindra has begun due diligence on possible purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover. The paper reports that the India-based conglomerate is more interested in Land Rover than Jaguar. That’s not surprising since Mahindra & Mahindra makes sport-utilities, making it a good fit, and Jaguar is seriously ailing.

Mahindra & Mahindra hasn’t confirmed its pursuit of the British brands, but Tata has. Last week Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Group, the parent company of Tata Motors, confirmed his interest in a television interview with CNN-IBN.

Ford reportedly has received preliminary bids from private-equity firms, the majority of which reportedly have added ex-Ford execs to their rosters. The firms include:

* TPG Inc., which recently signed on Bob Dover, former chief executive and chairman of Jaguar and Land Rover;

* Cerberus Capital Management LLC, which now owns roughly 80 percent of Chrysler;

* Ripplewood Holdings LLC, which recently added Nick Scheele, who was headed Jaguar before becoming Ford president and COO;

* One Equity Partners LLC, which has as one of its partners former Ford CEO Jacques Nasser, responsible for buying Jaguar and Land Rover when he was at Ford.

Meantime, Ford CEO Alan Mulally told Bloomberg News, in an interview posted today, that Jaguar and Land Rover have continued to attract interest from bidders despite the credit crisis. "We love the breadth of the buyers, we love the depth of the buyers,'' Mulally told Bloomberg.

Last week, Lewis Booth, Ford’s executive vice president of Europe, confirmed to reporters at a press briefing on the state of the automaker, that the sale of Jaguar and Land Rover should be wrapped up by year-end or by early in 2008. Meantime, the strategic review to decide the future of Volvo would be done in a couple of months, he said.

Booth told reporters Ford’s primary reason for selling Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover –- and possibly Volvo –- is that the automaker can’t afford to feed the future product needs of all of those marques and fund those of its mass-volume Ford brand.

Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:55 AM under Commentary , Ford , Personalities , Rumors | Comments (0) | digg this | Seed Newsvine