

Zeebiz Bureau

New Delhi: After Tata Motors’ buying out the British car brand Jaguar and LandRover, another Indian auto major Mahindra & Mahindra is making a 50 percent stake bid in luxury car Aston Martin.

According to news reports, the deal is going to be finalized this week.

M&M seems to be the clear front runner to edge out Italian private equity fund Investindustrial to grab the deal.

Reportedly, M&M had bid higher than the Italian PE fund for a 50% stake. Investindustrial had made bid worth between 200 million and 250 million pounds (USD 400 million).

According to a report by Bloomberg, to start with M&M is likely to pick up a minority stake of around 40% but will have the option to raise this to 50%. The final shareholding structure is still being worked out. The three existing shareholders and the management team will retain the residual stake. The operations team too is unlikely to change even after M&M or another strategic partner comes in.

Aston Martin is owned by a Kuwaiti consortium of financial sponsors led by Investment Dar who bought the company from Ford Motor in 2007 for 479 million pounds.

Earlier, in 2008 the Jaguar Land Rover company was established when Tata Motors acquired the Jaguar and Land Rover businesses from Ford.

Aston Martin is an iconic auto brand which has made cult screen presence in 11 James Bond films including the latest Skyfall.

With Agency Inputs