India-based Tata Motors said surging sales at its luxury Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) unit helped quadruple fourth-quarter profit to 24.24 billion Indian rupees ($530 million), compared with 6.5 billion rupees a year earlier.

The company said it was looking for a partner in China to grow JLR sales there and was also exploring assembling the top-end marques in India to satisfy heavy local demand, while pledging to lift prices aggressively to offset rising raw material costs.

Its stock climbed more than five per cent in late trade before closing up 3.8 per cent, said a report in our sister publication, the Gulf daily News.

"On the face of it, the numbers are very good and this is reflected in the stock price," said Taurus Mutual Fund managing director R K Gupta.

"Growth continues to be there and the company will continue to do well despite the possible rate increases," he said referring to rising interest rates in India.

The Jaguar and Land Rover unit, which Tata bought from Ford Motor in 2008 for $2.3 billion, was initially making loss. But it has seen a turnaround in the last few quarters and posted profit of 19.58 billion rupees for the three months to December.

Tata Motors' consolidated revenue for the three months ended December rose 22 per cent from a year earlier to 316.85 billion rupees. A poll had forecast net profit of 21.86 billion rupees for the quarter on net sales of 298.6 billion.

The company said its consolidated operating margin rose to 15.2 per cent from 11.8 per cent a year ago. Net debt-to-equity ratio was 0.8 in the December quarter. – TradeArabia News Service