As the UK government fiddles, JLR swings to £673.4 million loss

Jaguar Land Rover, the UK subsidiary of Tata Motors reported a loss of £673 million (Rs5,325 crore) for 2008 as the recession kept battering the UK car industry and the UK government's much-publicised but still elusive auto-bailout package of £2.5 billion announced in January (See: Britain unveils £2.3-billion loan for car industry) remaining to reach its recipients.

Filing its accounts at the Companies House in the UK last week, the carmaker said that Jaguar and Land Rover's combined pre-tax loss was £673.4 million  in 2008, compared to a combined pre-tax profit of £660.5 million in 2007, according to the Financial Times.

Tata Motors has hired consultants from KPMG and Roland Berger Strategy Consultants to help JLR cost cutting and to manage its cash flow more effectively.

The global recession, taking a hard toll on luxury cars, led to Jaguar's turnover plunging to £2,104.9 million compared to £1,149 million in 2007, while Land Rover turnover dropped to £4,557.1 million, against £5,460.6 million in 2007.

The combined "total recognised losses," which including actuarial and losses in pension schemes was nearly £1.2 billion last year. It included the sale of its shares in Aston Martin to investors from Kuwait for £308.7 million. Tata Motors received the shares of Aston Martin from Ford Motors as part of its acquisition of JLR in March 2008 for $2.3 billion. (See: Tata Motors confirms Jaguar, Land Rover deal with Ford for $2.3 billion)

The report that it filed was only for its UK operations and did not cover its parent company, Tata Motors, JLR said in its filing.