Tata Motors dismisses reports claiming company may sell stake in Jaguar Land Rover

Tata Motors on August 17 dismissed "unconfirmed" and "unsubstantiated" media reports claiming the home-grown automotive company may sell stake in its subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which it acquired from Ford in 2008. Tata Motors on Monday said that Jaguar Land Rover's business remains strong as it recently transitioned to new electrified, autonomous and connected technologies to support its destination zero ambition. 

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"Tata Motors categorically denies and dismisses any such intent. Jaguar Land Rover is and remains a key pillar of Tata Motors and the wider Tata Group. We recently announced our results for Q1 and have indicated that we are maintaining solid liquidity despite the Covid-19 pandemic and expect to be cash positive from Q2 onwards," the company said in a statement on its website on Monday.

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JLR's Q1 Report

Jaguar Land Rover Automotive plc on July 31 reported financial results for the three months ending 30 June 2020. In the report, the company claimed that the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact the business significantly in the first quarter of fiscal 2020-21, with retails down 42.4% year-on-year. However, sales improved month-by-month within the quarter across all regions as economies re-opened, with June retails down 24.9%. According to JLR, the business was particularly impacted in the United Kingdom, where sales went down 69.5%. 

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"Despite the significant impact of Covid-19, the company successfully completed £647 million of new funding and ended the quarter with solid liquidity of £4.7 billion, including £2.75 billion of cash and short-term investments and a £1.9 billion undrawn revolving credit facility," the company said in its report. 

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