Tuesday, September 13, 2011
By Pranjal Gera
Jaguar and Land Rover lose their Chief
Tata Motors seems in trouble after Jaguar Land Rover's Chief Executive Officer Carl-Peter Forster has quit the job. Tata Motors, owner of luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover, is at the moment, struggling to find Forster's replacement.
Forster helped Jaguar Land Rover return profits for Tata Motors. The JLR plant in Gaydon, England produced 57% of Tata Motors' total revenue for last year. The before-tax profit of the plant for last year, was 1.12 billion pounds, which was 20 times more than previous years.
Forster quit his job on Spetember 9, due to some personal reasons. Now, Tata is searching for his replacement in order to maintain its plans of investing $2.4 billion annually for China's market. China is being considered the biggest market for Jaguar and Land Rover's brands.
Forster's replacement will have to immediately take on the challenge of controlling the dropping sales of past six months. This will be a real challenge for anyone Tata finds. Also, company's shares have witnessed a 44% drop this year, which has resulted in making it the worst performer in the sensex.
Company's Managing Director for Indian Operations, Prakash Telang and Jaguar Land Rover's Chief Executive Officer, Ralph Speth will join Tata Motor's Board and represent their respective units.
According to an expert, it is a big blow for the Tata, and it will have a real hard hard time find Forster's replacement, as he drove the company in an all new direction.
Currently, Jaguar is seeling three models in the country, namely Jaguar XF, Jaguar XJ, Jaguar XK and planning to launch Jaguar C-X16 by next year. Same as Jaguar, there are four models under the Land Rover brand- Land Rover Range Rover, Land Rover Freelander 2, Land Rover Discovery 4 and Land Rover Range Rover Sport.
