INDIAnotebook
Tata Motors has acquired all of the equity of Spanish bus and coach manufacturer
Hispano Carrocera. Tata had previously held a 21% stake in Hispano Carrocera,
which specializes in luxury coaches.
BY T.C. MALHOTRA T ata Motors, India’s largest auto- maker, has acquired all of the quity of Spanish bus and coach
manufacturer Hispano Carrocera. Tata
had previously held a 21% stake in
Hispano Carrocera and purchased the
79% stake in the company for an undisclosed sum.
Tata Motors had picked up 21% of
Hispano in 2005 for about Rs 700 million
(US$14.5 million) and bought out the
balance from Investalia SA of Spain.
Tata Motors paid for equity, debt and
technology licensing. It also received the
brand rights from Hispano. Ravi Kant,
non-executive vice chairman and executive director of Tata Motors, has been
appointed chairman of Hispano.
Hispano is a specialized coach builder
with two manufacturing facilities —
Zaragoza, Spain and Casablanca,
Morocco — that have a capacity to make
approximately 600 units a year. The company specializes in luxury coaches. Tata
Motors’ intercity luxury coaches with
Hispano design and technology are built at
the Automobile Corp.of Goa (ACGL) plant.
“With the Marcopolo joint venture and
Hispano acquisition, the company now
TATA MOTORS ACQUIRES
SPANISH COACH MAKER
has a complete range of buses,” a Tata
Motors spokesperson said. Tata has a
43% stake in ACGL.
It was widely expected in the automotive industry that Tata Motors would
eventually increase its stake in Hispano,
mainly to reinforce its position in the
global bus markets.
“This partnership gives both companies an opportunity to use their complementary strengths to create high-class
transport solutions for intracity and intercity mass transportation in Spain, India
and many other countries around the
world,” Kant said.
Earlier in 2009, Tata Motors started
commercial production at its newest
plant in Dharwad, Karnataka, which covers 123 acres and a capacity of 30 000
buses a year. The plant is owned by Tata
Marcopolo Motors, a 51-49 joint venture
of Tata Motors and Marcopolo Motors,
the Brazil-based, global manufacturer of
bus and coach bodies.
plans to set up an earthmoving equipment manufacturing facility at Sri City
industrial estate, about 55 km north of
Chennai in the southern Indian state of
Andhra Pradesh. The company proposes to invest Rs 45 million (US$0.93 million) in the first phase.
Sri City, the 2023 hectare Special
Economic and Domestic Tariff Zone
near the Andhra Pradesh-Tamil Nadu
border, has decided to set aside 121
hectares as a “Japanese enclave” to
attract companies from that country to
invest in production facilities there.
Vikram Sharma, president and CEO of
Kobelco Construction Equipment India
Pvt. Ltd., (KCEI) said that Kobelco will
start manufacturing 20 tonne class earthmoving equipment at the facility in Sri City.
Sharma further said KCEI would subsequently produce other variants. The
facility is scheduled to become operational in January 2011, with an initial
capacity of 1200 units annually.
The company will continue to import
other capacities like 14, 35 and 50 tonne
excavators, said Sharma. The company
has around 40 dealers across the country,
and a local production unit will assure customers of faster delivery of components.
Kobelco India has been importing
excavators into India since 2007. It has
taken on a 99-year lease of 7 hectares in
Sri City’s Domestic Tariff Zone. Once this
facility is consolidated, it would be
expanded with another Rs 1 billion
(US$20.8 million) investment to widen
the product base.
Sharma said the market for excavators has been growing at over 36%
annually over the last few years,
except for the current year when the
slow economic conditions have contributed to “a little setback, but not too
much,” he said.
Kobelco To Build
Excavators Near Chennai
Kobelco Construction Machinery Co.
Ltd. of Japan, part of the US$2.33 billion
Kobe Steel Group, announced that it
Ashok Leyland To Supply
Buses to Dehli Transport
Indian commercial vehicle maker
Ashok Leyland said it would complete
the supply of 875 ultra low entry (ULE)
buses to the Delhi Transport Corp. (DTC)
from its new bus body facility at Alwar in
the northwestern state of Rajasthan by
February of 2010.
