The Tata Group is looking to expand its presence in the United Kingdom through inorganic growth after its successful takeover of steel giant Corus earlier this year.The group has also embarked on a brand-building exercise in the country, which it considers as the gateway to doing business in Europe as well as rest of the world outside India. It has appointed financial public relations firm Financial Dynamics (FD) for augmenting the exercise, S A Hasan, managing director of the group's UK-based subsidiary Tata Ltd, told a group of visiting reporters here."The Jaguar-Land Rover deal is already in the offing in the automotive sector. We also see value proposition in a potential acquisition in the leather footwear segment in the UK. Besides, we could also look at possible inorganic growth opportunities in sectors we are already present as well as new areas," Hasan said."UK is the largest market for the group after India, and is generating revenue worth more than $7 billion per year... Still, there is lot of growth potential here," he added."We expect the turnover to increase to $9-10 billion by 2010 with a fair amount of contribution from all businesses including steel," Hasan noted.The Tata group's $13 billion investment to acquire Corus Group Plc earlier this year is the largest by any business house from India. Besides steel, the company is already present in sectors like IT, chemicals, telecom, auto and consumer products in the country."The growth, going forward, would be more through inorganic route, through acquisitions. There must be an India-advantage for any deal to take place... there must be something we can do that they (the target company) were not able to do alone," Hasan said.(Reporting by Barun Jha)
