Hit hard by the continuing volume slowdown and mounting losses at its British arm JLR, Tata Motors is looking for partnerships to lessen the financial burden, chairman N. Chandrasekaran said on Tuesday.

Addressing shareholders at the company’s 74th AGM, the chairman, however, pointed out that the automobile sector was such that a company could not shut the cash tap as the very nature of this business demanded continuous investment in product and technology developments.

On the Brexit uncertainty, Chandra said more than the final outcome of the exit of Britain from the EU, it is the uncertainty that is hurting JLR in its home market and continental Europe, which is the largest source market for the millions of components that JLR procures annually.

“The only way to handle the ongoing crisis and the continuing need for large capex is additional investment through partnerships, because we want to spread the investment, which cannot be shut either.

“There are many discussions from tactical to strategic for such partnerships. Opportunities are coming and we keep evaluating them. We’ll forge such partnerships so that we are able to address the capex issue,” Chandra told shareholders.

At JLR, which used to be the cash-cow for years for Tata Motors, the bottomline has been sinking for the past three successive quarters.

Tata Motors made history in 2018 by suffering the largest ever losses for the December quarter with a mammoth Rs 26,961-crore loss because of impairment charges on JLR.

Last week, the company reported a net loss of Rs 3,679 crore for the June quarter against a loss of Rs 1,862 crore in the March quarter of 2019.

On JLR’s troubles in China, Chandra said the company has been seeing 40-50 per cent dip in volumes.