Mahindra & Mahindra, India's top utility vehicle and tractor maker, plans to invest 2.5 billion rupees ($54 million) into aerospace business, its managing director said on Saturday.
Mahindra will invest 1.5 billion rupees into aircraft component manufacturing, and another 1 billion rupees in aircraft manufacturing, Managing Director and Vice Chairman of the Mahindra group, Anand Mahindra said in Bangalore.
Mahindra said the group is open to inorganic opportunities to grow its aerospace business.
"Clearly inorganic strategies are not out of our purview. It makes sense given our growth opportunities to look at inorganic ... but as of now we want to consolidate what we have acquired," Mahindra said.
Last December, Mahindra along with India's Kotak Private Equity bought majority stakes in two small Australian firms, aerospace component maker Aerostaff Australia and aircraft maker Gippsland Aeronautics.
Mahindra said due diligence on the troubled Korean SUV maker Ssangyong Motor (003620.KS) was on and the group will make a decision on bidding for the company by July. Mahindra is competing with France's Renault and four others to acquire Ssangyong. "Right now we are in a due diligence phase. Once we have completed, we will make our decision whether to put in a bid. Sometime in July we will have to make a decision," he said.
Earlier this month, Ssangyong -- owned 10 percent by China's SAIC Motor Corp -- said it had shortlisted six out of seven firms that had submitted letters of intent to buy the carmaker, under a court-led restructuring since early 2009.
