India’s Tata Motors emerged as the preferred bidder for Ford’s Jaguar and Land Rover brands, but it looks as though Tata prefers one luxury marque over the other. A new report finds that Tata will likely sell off the Jaguar brand as soon as it acquires it from Ford .
“ Jaguar will be spun off almost immediately,” a source familiar with the situation told Inside Line. The news will likely catch Britain’s labor unions off guard as they supported the sale of the brands to Tata in order to keep jobs in the UK.
The Land Rover brand has far more support from Tata, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Land Rover’s production will stay entirely — if at all — in the UK. The same source also told Inside Line that company head Ratan Tata has purchased a 450-acre plot of land outside New Delhi where he plans to build a Land Rover production facility.
While Tata or Ford has yet to comment on the report, it appears as though the future of Jaguar will remain in question — even after its exchanges owners.
