C. Ramakrishnan, Tata Motors CFO, in Mumbai on Monday. (AFP)

Mumbai, Aug. 31: Tata Motors has suffered a consolidated loss of Rs 329 crore in the first quarter of this fiscal as global recession hit sales at its loss-making Jaguar and Land Rover unit. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 720 crore in the corresponding previous period.

Net sales were Rs 16,289 crore against Rs 14,414 crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2008. The company, however, said the first-quarter results of this fiscal and 2008-09 were not comparable as Tata Motors acquired JLR only in June 2008.

Wholesale volumes at JLR plunged 52 per cent, while retail volume fell 32 per cent. In the first quarter of this fiscal, JLR suffered a loss of £64 million, C. Ramakrishnan, CFO of Tata Motors, said today.

In the period to June, some £150 million have been put into JLR, of which £50 million come from Tata Motors.

“The business is aggressively implementing cost reduction initiatives to improve its profitability on a sustainable basis,” said a company release.

“We stopped X type production at our Halewood facility which reduced 300 jobs,” said Ramakrishnan. So far, JLR has seen redundancies of over 2,000 jobs.

The company, which recently announced that it was tying up guarantees from commercial banks, expects a £340 million loan from the European Investment Bank to be concluded shortly.

Tata Motors has also secured funds for working capital needs from a consortium of banks, including Standard Chartered, after talks with the UK government fell through.

The company, which recently launched the Jaguar and the Land Rover in Mumbai, said it had sold 18 cars in the city so far and had orders in hand for another 40. It expects to launch dealerships for JLR in six Indian cities by March next year and introduce the 2010 models of Land Rover.