Maruti net worth erodes 10% to Rs 2,584 cr

new delhi: barely a day after the government's decision to divest its stake in maruti, there's bad news for the country's largest car maker. bleeding with a rs 269-crore net loss, maruti udyog ltd's net worth eroded by 10 per cent in 2000-01 to rs 2,583.8 crore. this is even lower than its rs 2,596.1 crore net worth in 1998-99. meanwhile, suzuki motor corp has given the go ahead to reclassify maruti as a private limited company and rechristen the jv as maruti udyog private ltd, sources told the times of india.the proposal is now pending final approval with the heavy industry minister manohar joshi, who has sought the law ministry's view on the implications of the name change. talking to newspersons after its board meeting and agm, maruti md jagdish khattar said the total income, despite a 14 per cent crash in car sales, skid a mere 4.3 per cent during the fiscal. the company also managed to post an operating profit of rs 93 crore for the year. he attributed the reversal of fortunes to the high depreciation of rs 342 crore. "but our effort is to break even this fiscal, and till august, we are on target...around 200 people have already opted for the vrs programme and other efforts are also on to reduce costs." the company's board also approved the business plan to diversify into the services sector. under project vistaar, the firm is moving into used car deals, corporate fleet management, finance and insurance. maruti will now set up subsidiaries for pursuing its entry into the insurance market. "we have decided to take the agency route for marketing insurance products," he said adding that the exercise will start within the next 15 days. it has also decided to brand its used car and fleet management ventures as true value and n2n, respectively. the board also ratified the appointment of yuichi nakamura as the joint md and shinichi takeuchi as director (production) to replace t kobayashi and krishan kumar, respectively. the board, he said, will also shortly announce the appointments of director (finance) and director (materials).