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Well, no surprise there. Ford has instructed a trio of investment banks to prepare for the sale of Landrover and Jaguar. Ford brief the transport committee of MPs last night.
According to an ex-chairman of Ford Europe on the radio this mornig it is most likely that the two British companies will be sold off as one company as they have become soemwhat "intertwined" since Ford's acquisition of Jaguar in 1986 for 1.6 billion and 5 years or so later picking up Landrover for 1.7 billion.
No mention was made of the Rover brand which Ford owns, and was rumoured to have bought simply to stop the Chinese selling Rovers in the US market where Land Rovers' posher SUVs are sold and are coloquially reffered to simply as Rovers.
It is expected by "the markets" that Land-Rover Jaguar will be bought not by another car maker but by an investment consortium.
Ford Motor Company's losses last year amount to some $6billion.
Ford says the sale is to allow it to "concentrate on its core business"
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1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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rats from a sinking ship, tbh.
*n
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Top grammar tips! Bought = purchased. Brought = relocated Lose = misplace/opposite of win. Loose = your mum
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Land Rover and Jaguar combined made a loss of 160 million last year, not sure if that was dollars or GBP.
On a 3 billion business thats not too bad. You could turn that.
I'm curious to see what the long term future of Ford and GM is. They are (specifically GM) a wonderful blueprint for why capitalism is doomed. Think of GM as an economy, which it almost is on its own, and you see why "the West" will fall.
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1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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Who can buy these companies? I don't know. There seems to be just too many companies making too many cars, if Ford cannot make it work with all the great products thay have come up with, who can? I don't see how anyone could improve significantly on what the two companies have been making for the last few years.
Its funny how after the period in the late 90's when all the car manufacturers started buying each other up, now they are all separating again. Mercedes and Chrysler have just split up havent they. GM sold its stakes in Fiat, Isuzu and Subaru. I wonder if VW will flog off a brand or two. I can't help thinking that this can only lead to more diversity and interest value in what the surviving companies end up doing.
JCB expressed an interest in buying Jag when the idea was mooted a year or so ago, that would be an interesting development.
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1974 Lancia Beta Saloon 1975 Mazda 929 Coupé 1986 Mazda 929 Wagon 1979 Mazda 929 Hardtop 1982 Fiat Argenta 2.0 iniezione elettronica 1977 Toyota Carina TA14 1989 Subaru 1800 Wagon 1982 Hyundai Pony 1200TL 2-dr 1985 Hyundai Pony 1200 GL 1986 Maserati 425 Biturbo 1992 Rover 214 SEi 5-dr 2000 Rover 45 V6 Club 1994 Peugeot 205 'Junior' Diesel 1988 Volvo 760 Turbodiesel Saloon 1992 Talbot Express Autosleeper Rambler 2003 Renault Laguna SPEARS OR REAPERS
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I was wondering the same thing xbo11ox - how does anyone expect to make it work if Ford can't? I can forsee another Phoenix-MGRover style plundering of the companies before flogging the corpse off to the East.
They've already sold off Aston Martin. Who bought that? IIRC it was the only arm of Ford that was making any profit.
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Jun 12, 2007 10:06:02 GMT
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As I understood it Ford really only wanted a few tasty bits from Land Rover, engine and suspension-wise, so bought the company. And I'm sure they only wanted the engine to use in Jags so I'd guess getting shot of them both together makes sense. However both these brands fit in well with holes in Ford - Land Rovers and Range Rovers for the offroad sense (as the Maverick was stillborn, and other efforts are just rebadged lardy American soft-roaders) and they don't have a native luxury car since the Scorpio so the Jaguars, especially the cheaper end, slot in nicely above the Mondeo.
Would make more sense for VAG to be thinning out (why sell the Golf, the A3, the Ibiza and the Fabia?) to avoid competing with themselves... you even get stuff like Vauxhall developing a new chassis for the Corsa, which gets nicked by Fiat for the Grand Punto long before the Corsa was finished.
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Never trust a man Who names himself Trevor. Or one day you might find He's not a real drug dealer.
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Jun 12, 2007 10:11:08 GMT
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Ford is losinng money hand over fist. Annual losses of like $3billion. GM is doing worse. Whats worse is the more cars they sell the more money they seem to loose! The problem is thay have to pay union wages, union labour rights, union holidays. Toyota and the like have a non-union agreement and as they didn't build in the UK or USA in the 1970s they got away with that. Toyota etc also have more freedom to build multinationally.
What Ford and GM are doing is selling the family silver to try prop up their massive loss making operations while they try and restructure or come upw ith some new plan to avoid Chapter 11. Sale of Jaguar & Land-Rover could cover half of Fords losses for this year
Ford and GM could pull out of all international markets completely if it continues at this rate, possibly within 5 years acording to some pundits. This would effectively mean the end of Vauxhall-Opel as really, who would buy that?
Land-Rover Jaguar is set to be bought by a big bank. According to the radio Ford do not anticipate another car maker buying it.
10 year or more ago an industry guy was n the radio and he said there were too many brands competing in the car businss and that by the early 21st century there would have to be a massive cull. I wonder if that might not just be coming up...
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1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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Jun 12, 2007 10:14:01 GMT
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As I understood it Ford really only wanted a few tasty bits from Land Rover, engine and suspension-wise, so bought the company. And I'm sure they only wanted the engine to use in Jags so I'd guess getting shot of them both together makes sense. However both these brands fit in well with holes in Ford - Land Rovers and Range Rovers for the offroad sense (as the Maverick was stillborn, and other efforts are just rebadged lardy American soft-roaders) and they don't have a native luxury car since the Scorpio so the Jaguars, especially the cheaper end, slot in nicely above the Mondeo. . Jags have Ford engines though. Most of the investment was INTO Jag not from Jag into Ford. Scorpio market died off on its own, thats why that lovely FWD Scorpio II concept was never built. It was little more than a US Taurus with a rework of the suspension and stylig for the EU market. owning Jag was a lot more about adding prestige to the Ford lineup in the USA not selling cars here...
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1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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Jun 12, 2007 10:18:08 GMT
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Ha ha, imagine if those Phoenix clowns started sniffing around, there would be a fuggin riot! Aston was bought by a gang of financiers fronted by Dave Richards of Prodrive, it was 'making a profit', however that is on the back of a pretty brand spanking new range of cars bankrolled by Ford, the feeling is that it will not be easy to maintain the momentum it currently has, if it is self-financing.
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1974 Lancia Beta Saloon 1975 Mazda 929 Coupé 1986 Mazda 929 Wagon 1979 Mazda 929 Hardtop 1982 Fiat Argenta 2.0 iniezione elettronica 1977 Toyota Carina TA14 1989 Subaru 1800 Wagon 1982 Hyundai Pony 1200TL 2-dr 1985 Hyundai Pony 1200 GL 1986 Maserati 425 Biturbo 1992 Rover 214 SEi 5-dr 2000 Rover 45 V6 Club 1994 Peugeot 205 'Junior' Diesel 1988 Volvo 760 Turbodiesel Saloon 1992 Talbot Express Autosleeper Rambler 2003 Renault Laguna SPEARS OR REAPERS
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Shortcut
Posted a lot
I won't be there when you cross the road, so always use the Green Cross Code.
Posts: 3,037
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Jun 12, 2007 10:46:37 GMT
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IMHO an equity firm buying Jag/LR would be a big nail in their coffins. OK so LR's sell Ok at the moment but Jag sure isn't any ball of fire. The cost of developing new models in todays market was one of the holes in the Rover ship. Simply only the big players can afford the billions it costs to bring a new car to market, and even then they use every p[latform sharing trick in the book to keep costs down.
In equity ownership all that would be left fo Jaguar would be a series of increasingly desperate facelifts on old and shagged out models before inevitable oblivion.
Perhaps Land Rover as a niche product would fare better in the mid term but the huge increase in sales has been driven by the SUV market expansion, which seems to have topped out and the introduction of the Freelander as a more mainstream model. Again under equity ownership I can only see a slow spiral down.
Given that Jaguar make a loss and LR the profit I could see another major buying LR, but, as they have pointed out the two model lines are so intertwined that they simply have to sell both together, and who wants Jaguar since Aston make better sports cars and the mainstream Jags are just fancy Mundaino's so any new owner would first have to find eleventy fourteen billion pounds to come up with an all new Jag, and that's not going to happen.
I think that in 5 years Jaguar will be no more.
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Last Edit: Jun 12, 2007 10:47:39 GMT by Shortcut
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