India's Mahindra & Mahindra expects to complete its acquisition of Korean automaker Ssangyong Motor in four months and will operate the company as a separate unit, its president said on Wednesday.
Ssangyong would continue to have a South Korean chief executive, Pawan Goenka, president of Mahindra, which emerged as a preferred bidder to buy the automaker last week, said at a press conference.
The company had earlier said it intended to retain the current management.
Mahindra signed a memorandum of understanding with the troubled Korean firm earlier this week. The company will undertake a detailed due diligence, a process expected to take six weeks, Goenka said.
"If all goes well, it will be about four months before we are able to complete the acquisition," he said.
He said that while there were no major hurdles to the acquisition process, there was still a lot of work to be done.
Mahindra has set a time frame of two to three years to fully turn around the loss-making automaker.
There has been no official value put to the bid made by Mahindra, but sources have told Reuters the offer was about $400 million, all of which would go towards paying off Ssangyong's $640 million debt.
The deal gives Mahindra, a leader in the Indian utility vehicles segment, access to advanced technologies and a foothold in the south-east Asian market from where it can launch its global ambitions.
Mahindra is also planning to set up a tractor plant in southern India to add another 100,000 untis to its existing capacity of 200,000 tractors, Goenka.
