Ford eyes Tata for Jaguar sell-off

(CNN) -- India's Tata Motors was named by Ford as the preferred buyer of the U.S. car maker's Jaguar and Land Rover models.

The Indian firm's potential takeover of the two luxury car models, both manufactured in Britain, had already won the backing of unions.

Lewis Booth, executive vice president of Ford Motor Company, said in a statement Ford was "committed to focused negotiations at a more detailed level" with Tata Motors, which is part of the Tata business empire.

"There is still a considerable amount of work to do, and while no final decision has been made, we will proceed with further substantive discussions with Tata Motors over the forthcoming weeks with a view to securing an agreement that is in the best interests of all parties concerned," Booth said in the statement.

Ford bought Jaguar in 1989 for $2.5 billion, and Land Rover in 2000 for $2.73 billion.

It has struggled to make the two firms profitable despite large investments in both brands.

Land Rover and Jaguar employ more than 15,000 workers in Britain. They were told of the negotiations before the announcement, The Associated Press reported.

Unite, the major union at Jaguar, said that if the company were sold then it would prefer it went to Tata, the agency reported, and that union officials wanted assurances that any sale would not impact jobs.

A household name in India, the Tata group comprises 98 companies making products ranging from trucks to tea.

Its core business is steel and it made headlines earlier this year when it bought the steel firm Corus in a deal worth $13 billion.

Earlier media reports have also linked One Equity Partners, a subsidiary of the U.S. bank JP Morgan Chase, and another Indian group, Mahindra and Mahindra, to the deal for the British car models. E-mail to a friend

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