Case Study: Tata Motors JLR - a two-edged sword.

History was made in March 2008 when one of India’s top corporate entities, Tata Motors
acquired luxury auto brands -- Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) from Ford Motor for $2.3 billion,
imprinting their specialty as a takeover magnate.
Beating Mahindra and Mahindra for the prestigious brands, just a year after acquiring steel giant
Corus for $12.1 billion, the Tata signed the deal with Ford, which on its part chipped in with
$600 million towards JLR’s pension plan.
Acquisition of JLR by Tata was one of the rarest cases of an Indian Company acquiring luxury
brands. It was a very risky acquisition since JLR had been wobbling in the market and surviving
on the edge. Tata had to invest a lot in the brand to make it stand out once again. The biggest
reason behind Tata acquiring JLR was that it wanted to decrease their dependency on the Indian
market which accounted for more than 90 % of its sales.
Tata raised USD 3 billion (Rs 12000 crores) through bridge loans for 15 months from different
banks including JP Morgan and SBI as they were facing a cash crisis due to Corus deal and
heavy investments in TATA NANO Project back home.