Das Neuste von der BBC ...

[Ab9]

Consortium offers £65m for MG Rover
AccountancyAge.com, Accountancy Age 06 Jun 2005

Arab-backed consortium offers PwC £65m for MG Rover


ADVERTISEMENTThe Triple A consortium, led by Monaco-based car-industry analyst Krish Bhaskar, is said to have offered PwC - the administrators for MG Rover - £65m for the business.

Link: PwC lines up MG Rover bidder shortlist

According to The Sunday Times, the consortium, which has considerable Middle Eastern backing, has already paid a £5m deposit for the car company's remaining assets.

The paper says it is unclear as to whether PwC is taking the offer seriously, but the administrators said last week that they had received two 'credible' bids.

Bhaskar has said that 4,000 jobs would be saved at the Longbridge plant, which would eventually make 200,000 cars per year, nearly double the production of its former owners.

PwC is to provide an update to MG Rovers' creditors, who are owed about £1.4bn, at a first creditors' meeting on Friday.

[Scheini75]

Nachschub Nr. 1 der BBC :



MG Rover's administrators are gearing up for a meeting with the group's creditors.


Unions and workers have been angered by the firm's demise

On Friday, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) will give an update on Rover's affairs, following its collapse in April which led to thousands of job losses.

The failure of the last UK-owned volume carmaker has led to a slew of allegations that Rover's owners, the government or even its accountants have kept the public in the dark about its true situation.

To find out which, if any, of these allegations are true, numerous investigations have been launched into the group's demise. In addition, other players have said they will launch enquiries of their own.
_________________
Informationen sind kein Wissen !!!

Caleb Carr
" Die Täuschung "

[Scheini75]

Nachschub Nr.2 der BBC :


Cheap MG Rover cars to go on sale

Administrators will give an update on the company on Friday
Reduced price MG Rover cars go on sale on Friday as administrators begin to get rid of the last of the stock.

Brindley Garages Group in Wolverhampton is just one of a few dealerships across the UK to take possession of some of the final cars to be sold.

Managing director Mike Corbett said prices would be cut by up to half on some models and all vehicles would come with a 12-month warranty.

MG Rover collapsed in April leading to thousands of jobs losses.

Administrators PriceWaterhouseCooper are to give an update on the company's situation on Friday.


There has been more interest in their products than ever before

Dealership director Mike Corbett
Mr Corbett said the interest in MG Rover cars had been "unprecedented" since the company's collapse.

"There has been more interest in their products than ever before. There is a great loyalty to them in this area," he said.

"There has never been a manufacturer of their size to have gone bust."

He said the administrators had invited tenders from dealerships across the country to start selling the last of the cars.

A spokesman for the Society of Motor Manufacturers said the sale could only be good for the consumer.


E-mail this to a friend
_________________
Informationen sind kein Wissen !!!

Caleb Carr
" Die Täuschung "

[Scheini75]

Und zum Schluß die Nr.3 :


Free legal aid to Rover suppliers
Lawyers are providing free legal help to employers and suppliers affected by the collapse of carmaker MG Rover.

The support is being offered by several law firms in Birmingham and the West Midlands to people facing difficulties since Rover went into administration.

President of the Birmingham Law Society Richard Follis said the help embodied the spirit of National Pro Bono Week.

The initiative, which began on Monday, aims to encourage more lawyers to offer support to people with limited means.

'Bridge the gap'

Rover collapsed in April with the loss of more than 5,000 jobs at the firm's Longbridge factory in Birmingham.

Mr Follis, a partner at health law firm Alexander Harris, added: "Pro Bono Week is important so that we can acknowledge the enormous amount of unpaid and otherwise unsung work that is done by the legal profession for free or at very much reduced cost.

"Through Pro Bono, the profession is helping bridge the gap for those in need of legal help.

"In Birmingham, a number of specialists are working together to provide free legal advice to people affected by the collapse of MG Rover.

"They have already given hundreds of unpaid hours of their time."


_________________
Informationen sind kein Wissen !!!

Caleb Carr
" Die Täuschung "

[Scheini75]

Sehe nur ich da nen kleinen Silberstreif am Horizont ???

Rover break-up plan to go ahead

Rover's demise has hit thousands of households in the Midlands
MG Rover's administrators will push on with plans to sell the assets of the carmaker that collapsed with debts of £1.4bn and more than 5,000 jobs losses.

Speaking after a meeting with creditors in Birmingham, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) executives said Rover would be sold on a "piecemeal" basis.

Rover's creditors were set to get a settlement that was "nil or negligible" as very few assets remained, PwC said.

However talks would continue with firms interested in buying Rover as a whole.

"We've instructed our agents to begin to prepare for the sale of the assets of the company on a piecemeal basis," said Tony Lomas of PwC.

Mr Lomas added that there were still some "credible, plausible, interested parties" who said they wanted to buy Rover.

Broad interest

More than 630 firms have registered an interest in buying either part or all of Rover.

Only nine of those cleared what Mr Lomas called the "funding hurdle", with three expressing an interest in the business as a whole.

In the run-up to Friday's meeting, Rover had been linked to companies as far afield as China and Iran.





Probing Rover's accounts

Analysts are sceptical, however, and warn that the future of Rover as a volume carmaker is unlikely to be salvaged.

What is more probable is that the company's more successful divisions like Powertrain and its valuable brands, such as the sports car marque, will be sold off to the highest bidder.

PwC said that it is in talks with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation about supplying the firm with Powertrain engines and is planning to send a team to China to assess the feasibility of the deal.

A decision on the future of the Powertrain division, which employs 100 people, "should be resolved over the coming months", said Steven Pearson of PwC.

"It's a complex negotiation... but it could potentially result in production recommencing on a limited scale," he added.

No alarm bells

The future for MG Rover's hundreds of creditors looks a little bleaker, with PwC saying that they should not expect to get paid much.

Reports have speculated that creditors, who are owed about £120m, may get no more than 5 pence in the pound, or even as little as 1p.

"There are very substantial claims...and I have no doubt that those claims will rise in due course," PwC's Mr Lomas said.

"So whatever money there is available at the end of the day, it'll have to be spread among an awful lot of competing claims."

PwC said that most of Rover's assets had been sold off to fund the day-to-day running costs of car production.

The meeting on Friday came amid a number of investigations into the reasons behind the collapse of Rover.

There have been a slew of allegations that Rover's owners, the government or even its accountants had kept the public in the dark about its true situation.

PwC told the BBC that they found nothing suspicious during their examination of Rover's accounts
_________________
Informationen sind kein Wissen !!!

Caleb Carr
" Die Täuschung "

[Ab9]

Ex-UEA man's bid for MG Rover
15 June 2005



Krish Bhaskar
This former University of East Anglia lecturer could be the last remaining hope for stricken car-maker MG Rover.

Krish Bhaskar, who is now a motor industry analyst based in the South of France, is heading an Arab-American consortium which has become the front-runner to buy the failed business.

MG Rover's administrators, PricewaterhouseCoopers, said last week that time was running out for a sale of the Birmingham-based firm, with just nine bidders remaining in the frame.

Of the nine, only three want the whole of MG Rover, with the remainder looking to cherry-pick parts of the business.

Mr Bhaskar's Triple A consortium is understood to be heading the chase. He has offered £65m to buy MG Rover, and is understood to have paid PwC a £5m deposit.

Under his plans, the Triple A consortium would be prepared to invest £1.6bn in MG Rover, taking on 3000 production workers, another 1000 engineers and 100 head office staff at Longbridge. The consortium has another £1bn in reserve.

It would eventually produce around 200,000 cars a year - half of which would be underwritten by the consortium's backers. Mr Bhaskar is looking to produce around 14 models, including two environmentally-friendly models.

PwC yesterday declined to confirm or deny whether Triple A was one of the remaining bidders - but said all nine had persuaded it that they had the funds to proceed with bids.

A PwC spokesman said: ?At the moment we are not saying who the bidders are. What we are saying is that the nine have convinced us they have credible funding. Talks are ongoing.?

Mr Bhaskar, 59, has around 30 years' experience advising and working with some of the world's leading names in the motor industry, helping firms develop new products and more efficient ways of operating.

He was appointed professor of accountancy and finance at the University of East Anglia, near Norwich, in 1978 after a spell as a lecturer at the University of Bristol.

His involvement with the motor industry began in the mid-1970s when he wrote an alternative rescue plan for MG Rover's predecessor, British Leyland, which ran into severe financial difficulties in 1974.

At the UEA he set up the Motor Industry Research Unit (Miru), which offered specialist research to the motor industry.

The unit outgrew its office space on campus, and moved into offices in Dove Street, Norwich.

Having left the UEA in 1988, Mr Bhaskar continued to operate Miru from its base in Dove Street until it ran into financial difficulties in 1994, after a major customer refused to pay a bill.

The receivers were called in and the company's 25 staff were made redundant.

Ironically, the receivers were the same firm - Coopers & Lybrand (now known as PwC) - as MG Rover's current administrators.

Mr Bhaskar left Norfolk to set up home on the French Riviera, where he has been running Miru ever since.

He has put forward two business plans - one working with MG Rover's Chinese partners, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), and another plan working alone.

Under the first plan production of current models would continue in co-operation with the Chinese, with the two developing new models together.

The second plan sees MG Rover ending production until 2008 when it would launch a range of new products including a replacement for the Rover 75, an off-roader, a replacement for the MG TF and the relaunch of the Austin Healey badge.

The Triple A consortium is backed by a little-known investment company called Amar, whose full title is Arab-American Investment and Development Holdings.

Amar, based in Frankfurt, specialises in investing in engineering businesses across Europe and already has investments in 100 technology projects.

Amar's funding comes from loans raised against the fixed assets of wealthy Middle Eastern investors.


Interessant ist sind auch die letzten Zeilen über ein Replacement des Rover 75

Gruß,
Ab9

[Scheini75]

Das ist mir alles z.Z. zu still um MGR !

DAS MACHT MIR IRGENDWIE ANGST !!!
Bei der BBC gibts seit dem 22.06. nichts Neues .

[Scheini75]

Endlich mal was Neues von der BBC :

MG Rover 'white knight' drops out

Rescue rumours still circle Rover
Businessman David James has ended plans to rescue collapsed carmaker MG Rover.

Speculation has been rife recently about a possible rescue for Rover, which went bankrupt earlier this year at a cost of more than 5,500 jobs.

Mr James is part of a consortium that had hoped to buy Rover and keep making cars at the firm's Longbridge plant.

For that to happen, Mr James needed China's Shanghai Automotive (SAIC) to agree to buy key Rover businesses and assets, which it refused to do.

Without SAIC's agreement, Mr James and his group could not raise the money that they needed to buy Rover.

'Logical step'

Under the terms of their rescue plan, Mr James wanted to break up Rover and create a new MG car firm. The MG brand is seen as one of Rover's most valuable assets.


The MG Rover collapse sparked the loss of 5,500 jobs

Under his plan, SAIC would have acquired Rover's profitable Powertrain engine-making division, and undertaken to buy the firm's remaining assets a year later.

Mr James said that over the weekend it became clear that SAIC was not willing to commit to the plan.

"I thought they would accept it, because it would be such a logical step," he told the BBC's Today programme.

"We would have put them on our board and given them 25% of our new MG company as a gift," he explained.

"It would have been a very logical progression towards an eventual time when SAIC would have owned everything."

He said that it would have given SAIC access to the UK car market as well as providing the Chinese firm with the assets they already had expressed an interest in.

More talks

SAIC had already held lengthy discussions with Rover's management about the possibility of a partnership, but eventually ruled itself out of making a bid.

Analysts said that the firm may have decided it can get the assets cheaper once all hopes of a rescue have evaporated.

Speculation has swirled about Rover and its chances of finding a white knight.

The Mail on Sunday carried news of Mr James' talks, while The Sunday Telegraph reported that another firm, Nanjing Automobile, had been awarded preferred bidder status, enabling it to conduct negotiations on an exclusive basis.

Rovers' administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers have set an October deadline for reaching a deal.

Mr James said that his deal could only be resurrected if PwC made it clear it would not accept bids from SAIC or Nanjing for parts of MG Rover, or if the UK government promised to step in as a guarantor for Mr James's proposed deals.


Naja es bleibt halt spannend !!!

Wenns Positiv ausgeht = hemmungsloses Besäu... UND neuste Idee :

NEN GROSSES WEISSES V IN DER HECKSCHEIBE

[Enrich]

un wat heest dat in german?

Gruß Enrich

[Scheini75]

Ich kenne zwar nicht die Quelle , hab das aus dem dt. MGR Forum , daß
klingt aber besser als die letzte Nachricht von der BBC .

Bidders to go it alone for Rover

Jul 12 2005

By John Duckers, John Cranage and Paul Dale

A consortium headed by company troubleshooter David James and including 30 Midland-based managers is ready to go it alone with a bid for MG Rover.

It appeared yesterday that Mr James, the man who rescued the Millennium Dome, had dropped out of the bidding for Rover after a possible deal with Chinese car group SAIC collapsed at the weekend.

But sources close to the consortium said Mr James was willing to stick with it.

The consortium, called Project Kimber after Cecil Kimber the celebrated director of MG in the 1930s, is the only British group contesting ownership of the remaining MG Rover assets with SAIC and another Chinese carmaker, Nanjing.

The original intention was to create a new MG company to produce cars at Longbridge while selling off the remainder of the group to SAIC in order to give the Chinese a foothold in the global car market.

To do this, they needed an agreement that SAIC would immediately buy the Power-train engine-making division from them and would commit itself to purchasing the remainder of the Rover assets a year later.

That would have given the consortium the chance to borrow working capital against the Rover assets to get the new MG up and running.

But over the weekend it became apparent SAIC was unwilling to give the required commitments, said Mr James.

SAIC’s decision has left an £80 million hole in Kimber’s finances but a source close to the g r o u p said it would mount its own bid. Its members have expertise in production planning, design, engineering, manufacture, sales and marketing and PR.

The aim is to employ up to 2,000 former Longbridge workers making a three-strong model range of MGs within five years. In addition, it would look to produce other niche models for major car makers under contract assembly deals.

The source insisted: “We will go in with a bid of our own and we will talk to whoever in the world might take the surplus assets off us. We are in discussion with several companies around the world. Several have shown ongoing interest in the assets.”

Meanwhile the president of SAIC, Chen Hong, is expected in the UK this week for talks with former Ford of Europe boss Martin Leach who is heading another bid to revive production at Longbridge.

Nanjing, which is being advised by British engineering consultant Ove Arup and whose bid is backed by Nick Stephenson, a director of MG Rover parent company Phoenix Venture Holdings, denied claims it would “lift and shift” Rover’s equipment to China and leave “next to nothing”.

The plan foresees 1,000-2,000 UK-based designers, engineers and production line workers making sports and upmarket cars, and finishing small and medium cars imported from China.

Administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers would not comment yesterday.

Meanwhile, Birmingham City Council is drawing up fresh planning guidance in an attempt to create as many new manufacturing jobs as possible at Longbridge.

Clive Dutton, the council’s strategic director of economic development, said he would issue a “statement of intent” setting out the local authority’s wishes to see most of the former MG Rover site retained for the manufacturing sector.

The new guidance will act as a steer to landowners St Modwen and Advantage West Midlands and is intended to address concerns among people in the south-west of the city that parts of Longbridge could be sold off for retail development or warehousing.

Most of the land falls into the A38 Central Technology Belt, zoned by AWM for science-based industries.

Council leader Mike Whitby (Con Harborne), who issued a plea for manufacturing on the site, raised the issue with the Prime Minister when he met Mr Blair last month. “I have made our intentions clear at the highest level,” he said.

icBirmingham


Hoffentlich stimmts :
Das Glück ist mit den Mutigen !