CNBC-TV18’s Swati Khandelwal caught up with Pawan Goenka, president (automotive sector) of Mahindra & Mahindra at the sidelines of SIAM conference wherein he said all possible synergies with South Korea's Ssangyong Motor will be explored if M&M were to acquire it. “We would be looking at bringing in Ssangyong products into India and assembling in our parts here for India,” he said.
Recently, Scooters India has been put up for sale by the government with most auto majors looking at picking up 74% stake scooter manufacturer. Not confirming whether M&M is interested or not in acquiring the company, Goenka said they will check the valuations of the company before making any call.
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Below is a verbatim transcript of the interview. Also watch the video.
Q: Talking about some of the reports we have been reading on components sourcing etc from Ssangyong—will that happen and also will you at some point in time look at assembling Ssangyong products in the country?
A: Certainly we will be looking at all kind of synergies that Mahindra and Ssangyong can have if Mahindra owns Ssangyong. It will include joint component sourcing strategy where there could be a component sourcing for Mahindra from Korea and vise versa. We would be looking at bringing in Ssangyong products into India and assembling in our parts here for India.
We will not be looking at assembling Ssangyong products for outside India in our plants, for outside India it will be all Korea. We will be looking at technology sharing. We will be looking at platform sharing. We will be looking at common product development. We will be looking at network sharing outside Korea and India, so all areas of business. I see tremendous synergy coming in from our acquisition of Ssangyong.
Q: Scooters India is something that’s come up now. The government has been talking about how they are looking out for a joint venture partner. Has Mahindra really shown an interest in this?
A: I just had a brief talk with the minister this morning about government’s interest of divesting Scooters India—he has confirmed that they are interested. We have not looked at the Scooters India in any great detail up to now. We will just do a quick evaluation. I cannot say right now whether there will be enough interest from Mahindra and Mahindra in Scooters India or not.
Q: Talking about the two wheeler space your Reva acquisition is complete now, when are we seeing the motorcycle coming?
A: Are you saying electric motorcycle or just a motorcycle?
Q: No just the motorcycle?
A: Motorcycles will come before end of this fiscal year—before the end of FY11. Exactly when?—I cannot tell you but certainly we will launch before the end of this year. We already have started a sort of a prototype production in a very small volume and it will launch when we are ready.
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