Nano cash may end Tata's funding woes; bookings open till 25 April

Booking for Tata Nano, which got off to a brisk start in Mumbai today with a steady stream of customers queing up at booking centres, will continue up to the end of day on 25 April, Tata Motors said in a release.

Tata Nano Going by the current customer interest, Tata Motors looks set to raise enough money for repaying its last year's bridge loans rised for the acquisition of the luxury Jaguar and Land Rover brands from Ford .

Booking amount for the first batch of 1,00,000 cars alone will garner as much as $1 billion in a three-month deposit to Tata Motors, potentially giving it $200 million against delivery -- which may take up to a year or more.

Application forms are available at a price of Rs300 (for online booking Rs200). The forms can be bought at over 30,000 locations in about 1,000 cities through Tata Motors passenger car dealerships, State Bank of India and its branches, its subsidiaries and associates, other preferred financiers, and outlets of Westside, Croma, World of Titan and Tata Indicom exclusive stores. The forms come with a range of offers from select associate Tata group companies up to Rs1,100.

Customers can either pay the entire booking amount - of Rs95,000 (Tata Nano Std), Rs120,000 (Tata Nano CX), and Rs140,000 (Tata Nano LX) - themselves or seek financing of the booking amount.
 
Tata Motors has entered into agreements with 18 preferred banks / NBFCs to enable prospective customers to get finance and facilitate booking of the car.
 
The sale of application forms has already started from 1 April. The Tata Nano website has recorded over 50 million hits, including over 20 million  hits in the fortnight since the launch on 23 March 2009.

The company's partnership with the preferred financing partners has enabled attractive options of financing the booking amount, which start from a low of Rs2,850. The details are as follows: