Tata Motors suffer Q1 loss, but confident of improvement India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Tata Motors, India's largest vehicle maker have posted a consolidated loss for its fiscal first quarter, but remained confident about the prospects of its loss-making Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) unit. This was disclosed by the C Ramakrishnan, Chief Financial Officer at a press conference that was also addressed by Ravi Kant, Vice Chairman and Prakash Telang, Managing Director of the company here on Monday. The company, which controls about 60 percent of the world's fifth-biggest truck and bus market, said that increased borrowing to support investments and new product development caused an increase in depreciation and interest costs. It said JLR unit's sales fell about 52 percent in the quarter from a year ago due to adverse global market conditions. The company is eyeing some support from the commercial banks to meet the crisis. "We are working on to tie up our working facilities with commercial banks for Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR)...this has been put in place, some work is still going on which would be finalise in next few weeks," said Ramakrishnan. The company reported 3.29 billion rupees consolidated loss for April-June. In the year-ago quarter, Tata Motors posted a net profit of 7.2 billion rupees, but said the figures were not comparable as the previous period contained JLR numbers only for June 2-30. Tata said JLR made a loss before tax of 62 million pounds during the fiscal first quarter. JLR sold 35,900 units during the quarter, up from 32,600 in the March quarter. In July, Tata Motors reported a standalone net profit of 5.14 billion rupees for its Indian operations. But officials hoped that market would recover despite a weal monsoon. "I can say that things would have been better, but the monsoon has not been so good that caution optimism but we still believe that things would be slightly better in coming time," said Prakash Telang, Managing Director, Tata Motors. Auto sales in India have been rising on an improving economy, easier finance and new launches, including Tata Motor's Nano, the world's cheapest car, which hit the roads in July. The company's consolidated debt at the end of June stood at 240 billion rupees. The company has said it would look at capital raising at an appropriate time to deleverage its balance sheet.