India’s tea-to-steel conglomerate Tata Group on Wednesday confirmed that it has submitted a bid to buy debt-crippled national carrier Air India Ltd, which it owned decades ago before the airline was nationalized.
The Indian government has sought to sell its entire stake in the ailing company, setting a deadline for bids for Wednesday after failing previously to secure any interest for a majority share.
“We have put in a bid,” a Tata Group spokesperson said, without giving any further details.
Tata already has investments in airlines AirAsia India Ltd and Vistara.
Ajay Singh, the founder of Indian budget carrier SpiceJet Ltd, also submitted a bid in a personal capacity, the Times of India reported.
SpiceJet did not respond to a request for comment.
Indian Department of Investment and Public Asset Management Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey confirmed that bids had been received.
“Process now moves to concluding stage,” he wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
Tata Group in 1932 pioneered commercial air travel in India with Tata Airlines Ltd.
Once known affectionately as the “Maharaja of the Skies,” the airline was later taken over by the government and rebranded Air India.
However, it has been hemorrhaging money for more than a decade, incurring billions of US dollars in debt and losing market share to low-cost rivals in one of the world’s fastest-growing, but highly competitive, airline markets.
Apart from Air India, the government also plans to raise billions of US dollars through the privatization of Bharat Petroleum Corp and a share sale of a major insurer.
Last month, New Delhi said that it was seeking to lease state-owned assets to the private sector to raise 6 trillion rupees (US$81.7 billion) to repair public finances battered by the COVID-19 pandemic and fund new infrastructure.
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
DOLLAR SIGNS: The central bank rejected claims that the NT dollar had appreciated 10 percentage points more than the yen or the won against the greenback The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell for a sixth day to its weakest level in three months, driven by equity-related outflows and reactions to an economics official’s exchange rate remarks. The NT dollar slid NT$0.197, or 0.65 percent, to close at NT$30.505 per US dollar, central bank data showed. The local currency has depreciated 1.97 percent so far this month, ranking as the weakest performer among Asian currencies. Dealers attributed the retreat to foreign investors wiring capital gains and dividends abroad after taking profit in local shares. They also pointed to reports that Washington might consider taking equity stakes in chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor
A German company is putting used electric vehicle batteries to new use by stacking them into fridge-size units that homes and businesses can use to store their excess solar and wind energy. This week, the company Voltfang — which means “catching volts” — opened its first industrial site in Aachen, Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. With about 100 staff, Voltfang says it is the biggest facility of its kind in Europe in the budding sector of refurbishing lithium-ion batteries. Its CEO David Oudsandji hopes it would help Europe’s biggest economy ween itself off fossil fuels and increasingly rely on climate-friendly renewables. While
RSS