Ford confirmed Thursday that the company is considering an offer to sell its Jaguar and Land Rover subsidiaries to Tata Motors of India.
"Ford is committed to focused negotiations at a more detailed level with Tata Motors concerning the potential sale of the combined Jaguar-Land Rover business," Lewis Booth, an executive vice president at Ford, said in a statement.
"There is still a considerable amount of work to do, and while no final decision has been made, we will proceed with further substantive discussions with Tata Motors over the forthcoming weeks with a view to securing an agreement that is in the best interests of all parties concerned," said Booth, who oversees Ford's Premier Automotive Group businesses and is also the chairman of Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, and Ford of Europe.
"We can confirm that we have had positive discussions so far with Ford, concerning the possible purchase of Jaguar (and) Land Rover, and we are now entering a period of more focused and detailed negotiations with Ford," a Tata Motors representative said in an e-mailed statement. "We hope both parties can reach an agreement in the forthcoming weeks, though these are complex discussions, and there is still much work that needs to be done before that position is reached."
"We are pleased by the progress in the discussions to date and very positive about the prospects of this business, going forward," the Tata representative said.
Reports have put the deal at between $1.5 billion and $2 billion dollars, though neither Ford nor Tata has not confirmed any number.
Land Rover's Range Rover Sport
(Credit: Land Rover USA)Tata, which claims to be the largest automaker in India, posted revenue of $7.2 billion in its 2006-2007 financial report.
The company is part of the Tata Group, one of India's largest conglomerates. Founded by Jamsetji Tata in the mid-1800s, the Tata Group companies, which include Tata Steel, Tata Tea, and Indian Hotels, among others, employ about 290,000 people worldwide.
The Tata Group stated 2006-2007 revenue to be $28.8 billion, roughly 3.2 percent of India's GDP, according to company statistics.
There's a silver lining in the war on terror. The need for beefy, bulletproof buggies to patrol the Afghan and Iraqi outback has translated into factory jobs on the home front for at least one NATO ally.
Described as "a Land Rover on steroids," the new MWMIK (Mobility Weapon Mounted Installation Kit) 4x4 looks more like an armored forklift chassis. But with a top speed of 80 mph and wide range of armaments, it won't be pulling pallet duty anytime soon.
(Credit:
U.K. Ministry of Defence)
The U.K. Ministry of Defence has ordered 130 of the new vehicles from Plymouth-based Devonport Management Limited (DML) to the tune of 30 million quid. Traditionally a shipbuilding outfit, DML has "been forced to expand its skills base and diversify into new markets such as the super yacht sector because of the dwindling need for surface ship work," according to The Herald newspaper of Plymouth. The new line is expected to generate 120 jobs.
Designed by Supacat, it will have a chassis by Universal Engineering, a Cummins engine and an Allison transmission; assembly will be at DML's Devonport dockyard. The vehicle, which carries a team of four, a .50-caliber machine gun or a grenade launcher, will augment--and possibly replace, eventually--the Brits' current fire support model WMIK, which resembles something that saw duty in the Falklands. (See clip below.)
DML has its eye on the prize. "Once people understand that this is what we can do and what we are capable of, it should lead to a lot of interest and hopefully more contracts for us," CEO Dennis Gilbert was quoted as saying. "We are in a really good position to take off in terms of expanding our involvement in the market sector."
The vehicles were obtained under "urgent operational requirement," which means British troops should be sporting them sometime in 2008, according to Lord Drayson, minister of state for defense equipment and support.
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