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Jaguar and Land Rover have denied reports that the companies lost £206m in the first six months of this year.
“It’s a matter of record that we made an operating profit of £371m [$625m] in the first half of this year,” said company director Don Hume.
The loss figure of £206m surfaced in a prospectus issued as part of Tata’s fund-raising for the JLR purchase and was picked up by agencies in Mumbai, where Tata has its headquarters.
“When Ford sold JLR it chose to write off assets, taxes and liabilities against JLR,” said Hume, “but we are a profitable company.”
A statement from Tata said: “These are adjustments relating to Ford consolidation or accounting adjustments and hence not reflective of JLR’s business performance.”
Analysts’ recent concern over Jaguar’s US sales figures has proved unfounded.
Jaguar sold 10,925 cars in the US and Canada in the first half of 2008, compared with a total of 13,994 for the whole of 2007. Land Rover has sold 16,505 cars in North America in the same period, compared with 56,069 for 2007.
Globally, Jaguar sold 55,890 cars last year and had already sold 39,963 by the end of June this year.
Julian Rendell
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