Jaguar Land Rover mulls bid for minicab operator Addison Lee

BRITAIN’S biggest carmaker, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), is considering a bid for minicab operator Addison Lee.

The US private ­equity company- Carlyle Group-owned minicab operator is on its way to selling its business in a price range between £300 million and £500m. 

Carlyle has hired Bank of America and Rothschild as its financial divisors for the planned business sale. 

Tata Motors-owned firm is one among the potential bidders which are looking at whether to bid to acquire the minicab operator. 

The two companies have already been working in a government funded autonomous vehicle research project ServCity to trial driver-less cars within three years.  

Both JLR and Addison Lee were hit by the recent market fluctuations and an agreement between the two businesses is expected to ensure stability to return to their previous growth path. 

The entry of new businesses such as Uber impacted the business of firms like Addison Lee in the world taxi market as the newcomers introduced low, attractive taxi fares with accessible smart-phone technology.   

Addison Lee was founded in London in 1975 and has over 4, 800 cars in the British capital. 

It is Europe’s biggest private hire car service business with its worldwide presence in 350 cities.

Meanwhile, a steep decline in the Chinese demand for cars and a fall in the orders for diesel vehicles forced JLR to witness a quarterly loss of £3.4bn in February.  

Retail sales of JLR in the fiscal year (FY) 2018-19 were at 578,915 vehicles, down 5.8 per cent compared to FY 2017-18.

Indian conglomerate owned car producer earlier this year said it was axing 4,500 jobs or 10 per cent of its total global workforce in a bid to stabilise its business and force the firm to return to its previous growth path.