Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) may get the bulk of the British government’s GBP2.3bn aid package announced earlier this week, an Indian newspaper reported on Wednesday.
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Citing “people familiar with the development”, the Economic Times of India (ETI) said JLR may get almost GBP1bn; the other big recipient was likely to be General Motors’ UK unit Vauxhall, also a big auto employer here.
UK industry minister Peter Mandelson on Tuesday said the government would guarantee up a total of GBP2.3bn in loans for the struggling car industry, which suffered its sharpest fall in output in nearly 20 years last month. The government also announced GBP35m of new funds for training.
Citing its unnamed sources, the ETI said JLR was still considering how the package would help.
Jaguar Land Rover CEO David Smith was quoted as saying: “We see long-term benefit in the package that the government announced, which clearly recognises the strategic importance of the car industry for the future and supports Jaguar Land Rover’s position as the UK’s largest automotive employer, exporter and driver of research and development.”
“It’s the British government’s decision and we don’t want to get into it,” a Tata Motors spokesman told the paper.
Jaguar spokesman Don Hume said the paper’s report was “speculation”.
“No details have been issued regarding the talks that were held yesterday [28 January],” he said, adding that details had “yet to be sorted out”. There had been no “public discussions” yet about how the loan funds would be apportioned. “There is yet to be agreement on it.”
