Voda Idea pegs dues at `21,533 crore Tata Motors warns of lower JLR profit

Even as Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read met finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, on Friday, and declared his intention to make "new, good beginning" in India, the British telecom major’s Indian joint venture, Vodafone Idea Ltd, on the same day put its total dues to the government at Rs 21,533 crore, less than half of Rs 53,000 crore liability estimated by the department of telecommunications (DoT).

“The company has filed its self-assessment of the AGR liabilities with the DoT. The self-assessment discloses the company's AGR liabilities to aggregate Rs 21,533 crore including a principal amount of Rs 6,854 crore for the period from FY2006-07 to FY2018-19 and interest up to February 2020,” an official communiqué from the company said. The debtladen company has already paid Rs 3,500 crore out of the "self-assessed" liability.

Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman, Vodafone Idea, had had several rounds of parleys at the telecom and finance ministries over the last few weeks to look for a solution to keep the company's operations on track and has sought a bailout package from the liability imposed by the Supreme Court ruling.

CEO Read on Friday ducked all queries related to earlier indications by him and Birla that the company might shut shop in India.

Significantly, following the same self-assessment pattern, Bharti Airtel paid Rs 13,004 crore to the Centre in two installments and also deposited an additional Rs 5,000 crore "as an ad-hoc payment (subject to subsequent refund/adjustment) to cover differences, if any, arising from the reconciliation exercise with the DoT.

Tata Motors, India’s biggest automaker by revenues, which owns British luxury car marquee Jaguar Land Rover or JLR, on Friday warned of lower profit at its JLR brand for the fiscal year as sales in China have taken a hit because of the deadly coronavirus outbreak.

The outbreak has hit JLR's retail sales in China, the world’s biggest automobile market and is expected to lower the luxury carmaker's full year Ebit (earnings before interest and tax) margin, Tata said in a statement.

“Recognising the present situation is highly uncertain and could change, the reduction in China sales resulting from the coronavirus presently is estimated to reduce Jaguar Land Rover’s full year Ebit margin by about 1 per cent,” the company said.

However, free cash flow in Q4 is still expected to be modestly positive and JLR ha £5.8 billion of total liquidity at December 2019 (£3.9 bn of cash and a £1.9 bn undrawn revolving credit facility), it said.

As for Tata Motors domestic business, Q4 performance was already planned to be significantly impacted due to the switchover from BS-IV to BS-VI emission norms to be implemented from April 1 and the shortage of parts is likely to have some additional impact on specific BS VI models which is expected to be secured in the coming months.

However, Tata Motors expects to end the fourth quarter with positive free cash flow.

The coronavirus epidemic , which started in China and is spreading globally, has hurt sales in the world's biggest auto market and also disrupted auto supply chains. Tata Motors warned in January the outbreak could impact its profit margin forecast of 3 per cent for JLR.

Tata Motors expects to end the fourth quarter with positive free cash flow