INTERVIEW
HERO MOTOCORP'S PAWAN MUNJAL
P100
there's such a wide variety.
You're right, and I will admit I was surprised,
though not completely shocked because in our
first meeting I could make out that this man was
not just about big sportbikes. There was more to
him than that, which is why I put my confidence
and faith in him. But yes, what we've thought about
together and built in terms of concept and proto-
types is really beyond that original confidence.
As things progressed you decided to
purchase a slice of EBR equity. Why do that,
given that you did not buy Mahindra's equity
in Engines Engineering, and why only 49.2
percent?
Well, Engines Engineering had a history with
Mahindra which from Alberto's point of view was
not a very happy one, and he wanted to be his
own man again, with his own company. So we
decided to let it go like this—but who knows when
things can change in the future? In the case of
EBR, Erik also wanted to be his own boss, but
was not averse to selling me a minority sharehold-
ing, which I was happy to purchase. One reason
for acquiring that equity was that we are also keen
to enter the US market, as well as to get into dif-
ferent segments in the motorcycle and scooter
markets that we are not presently in today. This
was one very quick way to do that, so we are
part owners of a company that is already in that
market, and is expanding in it.
Would you eventually prefer to purchase
100% of EBR?
It depends on what Erik would like to do, but I
would say I'm ready to do so, if he ever wants to
do it.
Of course, Erik is best known for his pas-
sion for Superbike racing with his big V-twins,
most recently with Hero MotoCorp sponsor-
ing the EBR World Superbike team. Are you a
Superbike race fan?
The HX250R
single was one
of the many
prototype models
Hero unveiled at
last year's Auto
Expo in India.
