California Autos Examiner

Thursday, December 20, 2007

A Profile of Tata...Rajan Tata (Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter)


The Times Online has a brief writeup on Rajan Tata of the Tata Group. Tata Motors is considered by most folks to be the front runner for Jaguar/Land Rover. What I found interesting was the slew of take overs and future targets for the Tata Group:

Takeovers
Feb 2000 Tetley tea company, $407 million
March 2004 Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company, $102 million
Aug 2004 NatSteel's steel business, $292 million
Nov 2004 Tyco Global Network, $130 million
July 2005 Teleglobe International Holdings, $239 million
Dec 2005 Millennium Steel, Thailand, $167 million
Dec 2005 Brunner Mond Group, $120 million
June 2006 Eight O'Clock Coffee, $220 million
Nov 2006 Ritz Carlton Boston, $170 million
Jan 2007 Corus, $11.3 billion
March 2007 Bumi Resources, $1.1 billion
April 2007 Campton Place Hotel, San Francisco, $60 million

Targets
Jaguar and Land Rover, $2 billion
Close Brothers, $2.9 billion
Orient Express Hotels, $2.5 billion
All Cars, All the time, $2.3 billion*

*I might have made that one up

Anyways, to read the full article click here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ref: PMW\zy Please reply to: 20 Upper Ground London SE1 9PF Tel: 0207 921 4023 Fax: 0207 921 4723 STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL Mr R K Krishna Kumar Vice Chairman The Indian Hotels Company Limited The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Apollo Bunder Mumbai 400 001 India December 10th, 2007 Dear Mr Kumar, As President and CEO of Orient-Express Hotels Ltd., I wish to acknowledge your recent filing of Amendment No. 1 to Schedule 130 stating that you and your affiliates are the beneficial owners of 11.5% of Orient-Express' Class A Common Shares. As you are fully aware, we have previously advised you that Orient-Express has no interest in pursuing the proposals described in your letter of November 14, 2007. We felt that our prior correspondence with you was sufficiently clear in communicating our position on this matter, but because you have again expressed an interest in a transaction with Orient Express, we feel it is appropriate to outline some of the reasons why we do not wish to pursue your proposals. We do not believe that there is a strategic fit between your predominantly domestic Indian hotel chain and our global portfolio of luxury hotels and unique travel experiences, and we do not wish to be involved in an attempt to improve the performance of your non-Indian properties. We believe any association of our luxury brands and properties with your brands and properties would result in a reduction in the value of our brands and of our business and would likely lead to erosion in the RevPar premiums currently achieved by our properties. Further, your approach to branding, whereby longstanding individual hotel brands are replaced with the "Taj" brand is contrary to our approach, whereby we develop and enhance individual hotel brands and ultimately extend these hotel brands to additional properties. Accordingly, it remains the opinion of our Board of Directors that your proposal is inconsistent with our business strategy and is not in the best long-term interests of Orient-Express and its shareholders. Paul M White President & CEO Orient-Express Hotels, Trains & Cruises Cc J B Hurlock Chairman Orient-Express Hotels -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Orient Express Hotels Ltd