Tata Motors reports Rs 1,864 crore surprise loss in Q1 on major JLR hit

Auto major Tata Motors on Tuesday reported a consolidated loss of Rs 1,863.57 crore for June quarter on account of losses at its UK subsidiary JLR. Analysts in an ETNow poll had forecast a profit of Rs 1,500 crore.

The firm had reported Rs 3,199.93 crore profit in the year-ago quarter.

Revenues came in at Rs 65,956.78 crore compared with Rs 58,766.07 crore last year.


The luxury unit of the Indian auto firm, Jaguar Land Rover, reported a loss of 210 million pounds in June quarter.

The unit’s revenues fell 6.7 per cent YoY to 5.2 billion pounds due to lower wholesales and increased incentives in China in advance of the July 1 duty reduction.

The lower wholesales and higher China incentives combined with unfavourable balance sheet currency revaluation and higher depreciation and amortisation resulting from continuing investment led to a pre-tax loss for the quarter of 264 million pounds, the company said.

"With regards to JLR, we faced multiple challenges including issues like China duty impact as well as the market issues like diesel concerns in UK and Europe," said Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran.

JLR's total investment spending for the quarter stood at 1.1 billion pounds. This investment spending and seasonal working capital outflows of 1 billion pounds led to negative operating cash flow of 1.7 billion pound, the company said.

“JLR plans to invest 4.5 billion pounds in the ongoing financial year. The profitability target for FY19 remains within the previous 4-7 per cent planned margin we had shared for FY19-FY21," the company said.

As far as Indian operations (standalone) were concerned, revenue jumped 83 per cent YoY to Rs 16,830 crore. Profit after tax stood at Rs 1,188 crore.

Tata Motors said that its net debt soared to Rs 62,436 crore as of June 30 from Rs 39,977 crore as of March 31 due to negative free cash flow at both Tata Motors and JLR, and continued investments.

Net Automotive debt rose to Rs 32,977 crore for the quarter compared with Rs 13,889 crore in March quarter.