Mumbai: Ace footballer Lionel Messi will endorse Tata cars and utility vehicles (UVs) in India and globally, Tata Motors Ltd said in a statement on Monday. The decision to appoint a brand ambassador, for the first time, comes as the maker of Nano, Indica, Safari, Zest and Bolt brands struggles to connect with the young, upwardly mobile car buyers in a competitive car market, where rivals such as Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, Hyundai Motor India Ltd and Honda Cars Ltd have had greater success.

New Delhi: Singapore-based TML Holdings Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of Tata Motors Ltd that holds or owns securities of companies other than banks, has raised a $600 million loan from six banks, a company spokeswoman said.

“The loan will be utilized to refinance its USD (US dollar) and SGD (Singapore dollar)-denominated loans signed in November 2013,” the spokeswoman for Tata Motors said in reply to a Mint questionnaire on Thursday. Those loans were taken to infuse money into the company’s operations.

Markets have erased early morning losses and are trading in the positive zone led by buying in the information technology and consumer durables shares.

However, metal stocks are still reeling under pressure thus capping the upside.

Tata Motors was trading lower by over 2% at Rs 377 on the BSE on profit booking after the stock rallied nearly 30% thus far in October.

The stock had outperformed the market by surging 29% during the current month as compared to 4% rise in the Sensex till yesterday on improved outlook for sales of its Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), its luxury vehicle business.

Tata Motors, which had lost the tag of the country’s most valued automobile company to Maruti Suzuki in July this year, has added Rs 29,000 crore to its market capitalisation in the past 11 trading sessions.

This has come on the back of a 36 per cent surge in the stock price, triggered by improved outlook for sales of its Jaguar Land Rover arm. JLR, its luxury vehicle business, accounts for 83 per cent of the consolidated revenue. Maruti Suzuki, which has rallied almost 50 per cent in a year on improving market share and margins, has a market cap of Rs 132,306 crore (as on Thursday).

Tata Motors has rallied 5% to Rs 369 on the BSE after the company-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) sold 47,634 units globally in September, up 3% compared to the same month last year.

A combined nearly 3.2 million shares changed hands on the counter on the BSE and NSE.

Tata Motors' Jaguar Land Rover will invest $2 billion to build a plant in Slovak Republic which will help create over 50,000 jobs, European nation's economy minister Vazil Hudak said.

"We are happy to inform you all that the first Indian company to invest in Slovak Republic is Tata's JLR. They will invest $2 billion in the first phase," Hudak was quoted as telling a industry meet yesterday.

Focus on quality—that was the stern message that went out to the vendors of Tata Motors Ltd from Cyrus P. Mistry, chairman of the Tata Group at the company’s annual vendors’ meet on Tuesday.

Addressing around 200 suppliers in Pune, Mistry warned that “relationships may get compromised”, if vendors do not work with the company on improving quality, said four people who attended the meet.

Tata Motors is negotiating with the governments of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra for grant of stage carriage permits for its passenger carrier Magic, a 4 to 7- seater vehicle. If granted, the permit can be used for local transportation purposes.

With several other states, where the vehicle has been given the carriage permit on specific routes, the company is in talks with the authorities for expanding it to other routes.

Tata Motors has rallied 8% to Rs 322 on the BSE and the NSE in early morning trades on reports that Peugeot in talks with the company to make cars in India. The stock recorded its sharpest intra-day gain in past two years.

Earlier, in September 10, 2013, it rallied 10.8% during intra-day trade after the company's unit Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) reported a strong sales numbers for the month of August. The stock had finally closed 9.9% higher on the BSE.

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