Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Yet Another Saab Story: Mahindra Buying Spree



Months ago Mahindra announced a strategic partnership with Navistar, International Truck and Engine Corporation, to build India-specific heavy trucks powered by India-built MaxxForce engines. In November, Mahindra announced a joint venture with BAE to build military vehicles in India. Not that long ago, Mahindra announced they were going to pursue the Indian two-wheeled market beyond scooters and begin building motorcycles. Recently, Mahindra has been in talks with Boeing and Airbus about supplying aviation components, and last week Mahindra bought two Australian aerospace companies. This week, Mahindra released news of a joint venture with Chinese tractor manufacturer Yueda.

Where will it stop? The speculation about Mahindra buying the rotting corpse of Saab from fallen automotive giant GM still looms large.

Last week, Twitter users who follow Anand Mahindra noticed an odd Tweet (well, a Re-Tweet actually) about Mahindra in position to buy Saab. Far-fetched for sure, but it was certainly interesting that Mahindra took the time to read and Re-Tweet (RT) the sentiment. It appeared as follows:



@AnandMahindra: RT @anishkurien: GM winding up Saab good chance for M&M to
take over an international brand at a bargain./Well wht do u think of d
brand?

Mahindra did not publicly respond to the question, but it is pretty interesting that he did put it out there for the Twitter universe to see.

Mahindra & Mahindra have been on a global buying/partnering spree in the past year. And over the last three years, Mahindra has shown a great deal of interest in buying several international automotive enterprises including Hummer, Land Rover, Bertone (the Italian auto design house), and most recently one of Fiat’s factories in Italy.

When GM announced the sale of Saab in November, speculation of Mahindra’s interest first surfaced. Could Mahindra step in at the last minute and soak up the Saab gravy at a bargain basement sale price?

Sources: As Hyperlinked

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