Ford selling Jaguar and Land Rover!

[Bdog]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6741809.stm

Car firm Ford is understood to have chosen Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and HSBC to sell British luxury car marques Jaguar and Land Rover...

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So they don't have a buyer, their just using these three firms to sell. What happens if no one wants to buy Land Rover, will they just end the whole company?

[01001010]

Hmmm....I'll take'em!

Seriously though. Interesting situation goin on there.

[jozg44]

It seems a bit inaccurate for the BBC to say that Land Rover 'hasn't been performing well', seeing that in the last 5 years they've totally re-newed their model range to practically universal good reviews, they've broken sales record after sales record, reliability and build quality is up and the company can't build enough vehicles to satisfy demand. I know that what they actually mean is 'hasn't been making enough money', which is fair enough, as that is ultimately what the motor industry is all about, but it's hardly as if Land Rover are wasting away.

The sad thing is that if Land Rover is sold it in unlikely to end well- it will either be snapped up by a Chinese firm (none of the European companies will touch it after BMW's experience), where, if the MG-Rover example is anything to go by, they'll ship the entire plant piece by piece of to Shanghai and start building Land Rovers there, which none of us want.

If (as with Aston Martin) it is bought by British-based consortium, then it returns to British ownership (which would be a good thing), but sadly it then has an 80% chance of failure, as British management is rarely capable of running a large manufacturing company with the combination of efficency and finance that the motor industry needs.

The unlikely ray of hope that would be an ideal situation would be if one of the large-scale, succesful British engineering manufacturers bought it, such as Rolls-Royce, GKN or JCB (who have toyed with the idea of buying Land Rover since the 1980s).

It's a shame- Ford have been the best thing that has happened to Land Rover for decades.The company has finally got what it has always needed- huge amounts of money for development, whilst being largely left alone to handle the engineering and design. Either way, I think it's a shame Ford have been forced to sell up.

Jack

[Mr Tj]

The problem for Ford isn't really Land Rover, but Jaguar, which is continually loosing money for them. Given how close the 2 divisions have worked together, Land Rover is probably being used as the sweetener for the Jaguar bitter pill. There was some speculation about LR being part of the deal when Ford offloaded AM, but that didn't transpire.

To assague the fears of the first poster, if no buyer shows up, Ford will no doubt continue to produce LRs - they do produce a profit for them. Jaguar's future is less certain. Hiring bankers to advise on a sale quite often leads to 'nothing' in the end in business.

[SCSL]

I'm glad they're selling LR. The brand's not going to get any more mismanaged or confused that it's been under Ford... a few more years and it'll be "just another luxury SUV" anyway...

[sideview]

Hmmmm... http://www.lro.com/news.php?sid=67&page=1

[DevilDisco]

Originally Posted by sideview

Hmmmm... http://www.lro.com/news.php?sid=67&page=1

Hmmmmmmmmmm! Chrysler does have access to diesel engines that they can sell in the US. Like the one they are planning to put in the grand cherockee and the one in the Liberty might fit nicely into the LR2. But it would be a j@@P, unless Chrysler just considered to fund the LR operation, but they'll be looking to turn a profit quick. It could get interesting.