Escorts Ltd will be raising about Rs 2.35 billion ($48.2 million) this year by selling its stakes in three non-core joint ventures. Escorts said its board had approved stake sales in escavator maker Escorts JCB to partner UK’s J C Bramford and in combine harvestor maker Escorts Claas to Germany’s Claas GmbH. It is also in the process of selling its 50 per cent equity in a pistons-making joint venture, Escorts Mahle Ltd, to Goetze India Ltd, India’s largest piston rings maker and a joint venture of Escorts and Federal Mogul of the US. ‘The divestment is in keeping with our focus on the core businesses of agri-machinery, healthcare and telecom and our decision to exit non-core businesses’, Rajan Nanda, Escorts’ CMD, said in a statement. He said the company had accelerated the stake sales to fund investments in its other businesses and to improve cash flows amidst a downswing in its mainline tractor business as well as to repay maturing loans.
