Parts for your X-type harder to come by when ordering at the dealer? No? They will be as the company that JUSt took over the brand hits the skids.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...AIY&refer=home

Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) Tata Motors Ltd., the maker of Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles, declined the most in almost two weeks in Mumbai trading after sales declined in India and Credit Suisse downgraded the stock.

Tata Motors fell as much as 5.8 percent to 125 rupees and changed hands at 129.55 rupees at 10:44 a.m. in Mumbai, having declined 82 percent this year. The company's American depositary receipts yesterday slid a record 18 percent to $3.75 in New York, the most since they began trading on Sept. 27, 2004. They have declined 80 percent this year.

The Mumbai-based company's vehicle sales plunged 30 percent in November, the most in at least four years, as higher loan rates and a slowing economy damped demand for trucks and cars.

``The slowdown in the car market hurts Tata Motors's business particularly hard as it lacks the brand to compete effectively,' Govindarajan Chellappa, a Mumbai-based analyst at Credit Suisse, wrote in a note dated yesterday. ``Jaguar and Land Rover will also likely face severe demand contraction over the next year due to negative wealth effect.'

The automaker yesterday turned to the public to raise loans for the first time in 13 years as the credit crunch limits its ability to refinance $3 billion of bridge loans taken to buy Jaguar and Land Rover.

India's biggest truckmaker yesterday said total vehicle sales declined to 32,696 in India and overseas last month, compared with 46,947 a year earlier. Tata Motors doesn't give monthly sales of its luxury units. The company's commercial vehicle sales in India fell 40 percent to 16,229, it said.

Stock Downgrade

Credit Suisse's Chellappa downgraded the company to ``neutral' from ``outperform.'

Tata Motors is offering as much as 11 percent annual interest on three-year deposits to raise money from the public, spokesman Debasis Ray said yesterday. A government bond with a similar maturity offers a 6.97 percent yield.

The company needs money to replace the loans it had used to fund the $2.4 billion purchase of the U.K.-based luxury units from Ford Motor Co. A global credit crunch after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has cut the availability of financing for companies amid a worldwide recession.

Tata Motors needs to repay the entire $3 billion loan by June 2009. It has already repaid about $890 million using funds raised from a rights offer of shares, Chellappa wrote.

Tata Motors will need to raise 114 billion rupees through in the fiscal year ending March 31 or next year, he wrote. It may have to sell more equity as the debt market is frozen, he wrote.

Refinance Bid

The company is seeking to raise $1.2 billion in loans to refinance debt from the acquisition, International Financing Review said, without saying where it got the information. The company is in talks with banks about a five-year loan to its Tata Motors U.K. unit, IFR reported.

Tata Motors will pay around 600 basis points above the London interbank offered rate, the largest spread on any loan from an Indian company, IFR said. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

The fundraising comes as Moody's lowered Tata Motors's rating by two levels to ``B1,' four ranks below investment grade on Nov. 28 and said its credit outlook is negative. Moody's last lowered the rating on June 3.

 

THATS NO BIGGER STOCK DROP THAN ALOT OF MY OTHER HOLDINGS THIS YEAR[:@]

 

You don't have 6 months to pay back 3 BILLION dollars.

Tata had to pretty much run a flawless take over for it to work. They gambled a lot, then the market crashed on them. The problem is the banks are not loaning any money to them, and with no money coming in - their 6 month timeframe is more like a death certificate. FORD could buy them back and actually MAKE money on the deal.

 

That Mumbai area has had a hell of time lately...[&:]

 

Technically a little over 2.1 billion! I wonder what the interest rate is like on 3 billion dollars! LOL

 

Thanks very much for posting this, I had been looking for recent news and only found a sliver from the Wall St. Journal.

 

That is very interesting. FORD most certainly could end up with it again and if they get a bail-out, they actually could have a decent shot at it.

 

What do tou all think? Do you like Ford or Tata better? I think Ford Jaguars were prettiersince they had theleaper.

 

TATA has not done anything yet as us the consumer can see..maybe the Jag dealers have a better feel..But since the acquisition of the Land Rover and Jaguar line..TATA has just been a name.

 

I was hoping for a reverse decision on the X-type from Tata but that isn't going to happen. There were things Ford could have done better, such as training their mechanics on Jags. Better ads...and more placement of them. I do Tata does not close down the UK plants and move everything to India. If Tata doesn't follow through, Jag will certainly go to Japan or China for ownership.

 

It seems just about all of the automobile manufacturing companies are in a bind at this point, not just Tata. It doesn't seem fair tospeak ofTata's failures without bringing up the major problems with Ford, General Motors and Chrysler (especially because GM and Chrysler are ina farmore precarious position at this time). Last I heard, GM's chairman said they won't make it until New Year's without a government bailout.

Now is a poor time to be an automaker.

 

Now is a poor time to be pretty much anything...

Hopefully ford ends up with them again, I wouldn't mind and you'd probably never see them move the plants anywhere (even though tata says this wouldn't happen.)

 

Ford has more reputable name over Tata but if Tata makes some good investment for the brand I would prefer latter . I don't care whether Ford or Tata I do care about what's the best for Jaguar

 

It's hard to tell what is better at this point but I agree. I could easily see tata moving the 2 to india in the future though...i may be wrong but we aren't in the situation we are in now because we kept all of our manufacturing jobs in-house per se! Freetrade or rather we'll take your garbage and you don't have to take any of ours sucks.

 

[&:]