Tata Motors hits 18-months low; exits Rs 1 lakh crore market-cap club

Shares of Tata Motors have fallen to 18-month lows of Rs 328 after declining nearly 6% in the past two trading sessions, bringing down its market capitalisation (market-cap) below Rs 1 lakh crore on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

At 12:24 AM, the stock was trading at Rs 331, its lowest level since February 2014 in intra-day trades.

Tata Motors' market value has declined by Rs 15,983 crore to Rs 95,147 crore from Rs 111,130 crore yesterday. With the fall in market price, the stock has been ejected out of the list of top 10 companies by market-cap, the BSE data shows.

Tata Motors has seen a market-cap erosion of Rs 18,810 crore in the past two trading sessions.

Tata Motors now stands at the 22nd position in overall market-cap rankings, behind Indian Oil Corporation, NTPC, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HCL Technologies.

Six months back, in February 2015, Tata Motors had stood at 13th rank with a market-cap of Rs 176,471 crore. Since then, the stock has fallen 43% from Rs 577 after the consolidated net profit of the company more than halved to Rs 1,717 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 2015.

In the first-quarter of the current financial year 2015-16, Tata Motors had reported a 49% year-on-year drop in net profit to Rs 2,769 crore as sales at its UK luxury car unit Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc. (JLR) declined with demand weakening in China, its largest market.

Meanwhile, the company today said that many of vehicles stored at various locations in Tianjin may have been damaged in the explosion. “At the time of the explosion, approximately 5,800 vehicles that had recently been shipped to China were stored at various locations in Tianjin. However, access to facilities near the site of the explosion remains restricted and so whilst we believe many of these vehicles may have been damaged, we are presently unable to quantify the numbers of units affected,” Tata Motors said in press statement.

We will continue to monitor the situation and work to minimise the impact on our customers and the business, the company added.

Tianjin Port is one of three major locations in China through which Jaguar Land Rover imports vehicles, the company emphasized.