Tata Sons, the Indian conglomerate that owns Jaguar Land Rover, said it is open to finding partners for the automaker but isn’t planning on selling the embattled unit. “We’re not going to sell,” said Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company in an expansive business empire that includes Tata Motors Ltd. “Auto is a core business for us. From revenue terms, auto is our largest company.”
Tata Motors bought the maker of the Jaguar XE sedan and Land Rover Discovery SUV from Ford Motor in 2008. After turning it into a cash cow with booming sales in countries like Russia and China, JLR waned to such an extent that it had to launch a 2.5 billion-pound ($3.2 billion) savings program and slash thousands of jobs worldwide. Losses at Tata’s automotive business have mounted with a slump in the country’s car market, as well as trouble overseas, including an economic slowdown in China, where auto sales are sliding, and uncertainty over Brexit.
In a interview, Chandrasekaran said dealing with tariffs is the “new normal” for the global auto industry and that negotiations around Britain’s exit from the European Union have taken too long.“Nations are getting more protective.” While the company would “always look for partnerships,” it doesn’t want deals where “we just sell a stake and we have no say,” Chandrasekaran said. “We are not financial investors, Tata Group, we run companies. I’m not a Blackstone, I’m not a KKR.” JLR’s capital expenditure has outpaced operating cash flow over the past two years, but Chandrasekaran said his target is to reverse that trend by 2021. “Once we do that, then people will believe what I’m saying: I’m not running away.”
