M&M plans more Scorpio variants

Also a couple of domestic and overseas acquisitions on the anvil.

Mahindra & Mahindra plans to launch more utility vehicles based on the Scorpio platform. These are likely to be all new vehicles and not merely Scorpio variants.

"As a company, we are always looking to come out with new vehicles. The only question is what and when," said M&M's Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Anand Mahindra yesterday in New Delhi.

The timing of the new vehicles' rollout will be a delicate decision in view of the three-year-old Scorpio's performance "� it is a market leader. It is possible to roll out a very large number of vehicles off a single platform, which is a vehicle's core structure. "The only limitation is our imagination," said Mahindra.

Meanwhile, M&M is close to acquiring a couple of companies in India and abroad in the auto component and engineering services sector and aims to make Mahindra Systems & Automotive Technologies (Msat) a $1-billion company by 2010.

This will be a four-fold increase over the current revenue of $250 million. "We are very close to acquiring companies in the engineering services sector... maybe in four weeks. We are in the final round of talks with companies in Germany and Detroit. We are also in talks with companies here (in India)," said Hemant Luthra, president, Msat.