Tata rebuffs reports of Jaguar Land Rover sale

Jaguar Land Rover’s parent company Tata Motors has denied it plans to sell the struggling manufacturer to Peugeot and Vauxhall owner PSA Group.

Reports had claimed senior management teams at PSA and JLR have been given access to a post-sale integration document with the details of a tie-up.

But a Tata Motors spokesperson said: “There is no truth to these rumours.”

Tata bought JLR from Ford for £1.15bn in 2008 and the business has been transformed in the last decade to become one of the region’s most important and successful companies.

However JLR is in the middle of a difficult period, affected by Brexit preparations, plummeting Chinese sales, the widespread shift away from diesel and the emergence of electric vehicles.

The car manufacturer sold 578,915 vehicles in 128 countries in 2018-2019, but it was 35,000 fewer than a year earlier. The Chinese market shrunk by one-third.

At the start of this year, JLR revealed plans to cut 4,500 jobs from its workforce in response.