Troubled Indian car maker Hindustan Motors is considering putting its Tiruvallur factory up for sale for an amount of Rs 150 Crore and its Japanese business partner Mitsubishi Motors isn't interested in acquiring the property. The Tiruvallur factory, at present, assembles the Mitsubishi Pajero Sport SUV for the Indian market, along with the Isuzu MU-7 SUV.
Hindustan Motors is also the manufacturer of the Ambassador and erstwhile iconic Contessa cars. In fact, just in September 2013, Hindustan Motors had launched a BS 4 variant of the Ambassador, terming it the Ambassador Encore. The company had also confirmed that a sub-4 meter variant of the Ambassador will be launched sometime during the next fiscal. These models are set to come out of the Uttarpara plant in West Bengal, which is also suffering from under-utilisation of capacity.
Hindustan Motors is believed to have put the Tiruvallur plant up for sale in order to acquire some fresh funds and pump it into improving the performance of its other manufacturing facilities in Hooghly, West Bengal and near Indore in Madhya Pradesh. Hindustan Motors is also believed to have kickstarted the process of sale by informing its decision and its financial status to the Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction.
HM's Tiruvallur plant began production more than 30 years ago and in 1998, began producing cars for Mitsubishi. The plant has a capacity of 12,000 units per annum.
[Source - The Hindu Business Line]
