Concorde rights expand capacity

MUMBAI, JUNE 7: Concorde Motors, a automobile dealership joint venture between the Tatas and Hong Kong-based Jardine International Motors...

MUMBAI, JUNE 7: Concorde Motors, a automobile dealership joint venture between the Tatas and Hong Kong-based Jardine International Motors would come out with a Rs 38 crore rights issue to expand capacity to meet the growing demand for the Indica car and enhance its after-sales network.

8221;Concorde has got a sanction from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board FIPB to increase its paid-up equity to Rs 125 crore. The paid-up capital of the company is Rs 86 crore. A rights issue towards raising the balance Rs 38 crore equity will be made before the end of this year8221;, Steven Foster, managing director of Concorde Motors told newspersons here today. He was speaking at the inauguration of a 26,000 sq.ft. Workshop to service Mercedes- Benz cars.

Foster said that demand for Indica had necessitated setting up another workshop to service cars of this model. He further said that the after-sales network for the Indica and Mercedes-Benz needed to be enhanced. Also, the company has established a Rs 70 crore committedfund for hardware and infrastructure. The Concorde MD said that company plans to set up another workshop to service Indica. 8221;the demand for Indica is expected to rise to 1.5-2 lakh cars in two years8221;, he predicted.

According to Foster, Concorde has got a mandate from Telco to sell automobiles manufactured by it. He hinted that the Tatas and Jardine Group are discussing setting up more joint ventures. He added that the company8217;s second hand car business will remain integrated and not hived off into a separate company. 8221;We had not planned to start the second-hand car business before September. We are ahead of schedule, having started it already8221;, he observed.

The company has its dealership network for Telco range of passenger vehicles in seven cities of the country. They are Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Ludhiana. Concorde is offering the latest from Mercedes-Benz E-class and the MB 100 van to its customers. The workshop opened today has 12 working bays and 6 service bays.It can accomodate 25 cars. The cellete bench for chassis alignment comes from Italy and the sophisticated computer scanner star diagnosis8217; is from Germany.