The Indian SUV leader, Mahindra & Mahindra issued a recent statement win which it denied about the company having any plans about setting up a manufacturing facility for pick-up trucks in Alabama, United States with the help of Navistar. The main competitors in that segment, Ford and Chrysler recently announced that they are going to pull out of the pick-up truck segment and focus on developing passenger cars. Mahindra, already into making pick-up trucks is likely to capitalize on this opportunity by launching its product portfolio to capture the pickup segment market which made the rumour even stronger to believe.
“There have been reports in certain quarters of media and online space stating that Navistar USA will produce Mahindra’s T20 and T40 pickups in Alabama, USA in 2012, which are completely baseless & incorrect. If and when there are any material developments, Mahindra & Mahindra Limited will communicate them directly and transparently,” Mahindra said.
Mahindra & Mahindra, a $ 12.5 billion multinational enterprise based out of Mumbai employs 137,000 people in over 100 countries as has its presence in the automotive industry, agribusiness, aerospace, automotive components, consulting services, defense, energy, industrial equipment, logistics, real estate, retail, steel and two wheelers. Navistar was into a business relationship with Mahindra for a long time and one of Mahindra’s sport utility vehicles is a direct descendant of an SUV that used to be sold by Navistar during the 60’s and 70’s. The duo got into a formal joint venture in the year 2005. Meanwhile, it seems that the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) which is influential in and around Chicago (where Navistar is based) is telling all the manufacturers and component suppliers to think before doing business in Alabama because of its anti-immigrant laws and practices.
