"PricewaterhouseCoopers will advice the company and submit a report over the next few months", a top company official told The Financial Express.

The company is highly diversified into various businesses such as sugar, and agri-genetics, though bulk of the revenues come from tyre business, including a subsidiary Vikrant Tyres.

Market analysts say that the move may have come in the wake of German tyre major Continental's proposed plans to enter into a joint venture agreement with a tyre company in this country. Continental was in talks with all three companies Apollo Tyres, Modi Rubber Ltd and JK Industries for picking up an equity stake. The company is also planning a foray in the two wheeler and three wheeler tyre segment and is in talks with some companies in Kerala and Madhya Pradesh for an alliance, sources said.

"There is a large market for two wheeler tyres, especially scooters, which we are planning to enter by sourcing them from these companies," the sources said.

They added that there are lots of small units in the South such as Stallion Tyres or Kumar Tyres, but refused to divulge the name of the company with whom the JK Industries is negotiating with.

JK Industries recorded a turnover of Rs 1,346 crore for the year ended March 2000 and a net profit of Rs 32.75 crore. Its total borrowings for fiscal 1999-2000 stood at Rs 671.84 crore. u The sharp rise in prices of petro products has been bleeding the entire tyre industry, with the profitability of tyre majors showing a big drop ranging from 15 per cent to as much as 200 per cent during the nine month period ended December 2000.

All tyre majors are likely to end the current fiscal with much weaker bottomlines compared to the same period of the previous year.

JK Industries bottomline is down by only 15 per cent in the period because of a series of cost cutting measures, higher operating efficiencies and marketing strategies. Among the tyre majors worst hit is Ceat, an RPG group company, whose profit before tax at the end of first nine months of the current fiscal dropped by over 190 per cent, totalling a loss of over Rs 12 crore. MRF's bottomline for the same period slid by 45 per cent as against the corresponding period last fiscal.