DHAKA: Tata Motors is launching two models this week for India’s Auto Expo but the sudden death of its operations chief has left the vehicle giant in turmoil as it struggles to rebuild its fortunes.

Tata Motors, a unit of giant Indian tea-to-steel conglomerate Tata, has become almost totally dependent on British prestige marques Jaguar and LandRover (JLR) for profit while its domestic woes go from bad to worse.

Tata Motors managing director Karl Slym had been seeking to drive a revival of India’s largest vehicle group when police last weekend said he had plunged from a Bangkok hotel upper floor in an apparent suicide.

The death of the British-born executive, a cricket-mad Indophile, marked a ‘huge loss for Tata Motors’, said Deepak Rathore, director of Indian consultancy Emerging Markets Automotive Advisors, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1550 HRS, FEB 02, 2014