Posted on 08/15/2006 6:40:50 PM PDT by blam
Chinese to steer Viking long ship
By Christopher Hope, Industry Editor
(Filed: 16/08/2006)
The world-famous Rover name has been sold to the Chinese, 18 months after the Longbridge plant stopped making Rover and MG cars in the west Midlands.
In March BMW chief executive Helmut Panke admitted the Rover name was up for grabs
BMW, the German car maker which owns the historic brand, is understood to have agreed to sell the marque - which features the iconic Viking long ship - to Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation for more than £11m. The two companies are planning to announce the transaction in the next fortnight. Industry sources said any deal could not be announced until then because of a previous agreement to give Ford the right to pre-empt any sale.
A spokesman for BMW said: "A sales contract for the Rover trademark has been signed, but completion is conditional on whether Ford exercises its right to buy within an agreed period of time." Ford declined to comment. However, it is understood that the US car maker is unlikely to stand in the way of any sale after extracting guarantees that Shanghai Automotive will not start making off-road Rover cars.
That agreement dates from when Ford bought Land Rover from BMW for £1.4bn in 2000. Then it was agreed that Rover was not allowed to enter the off-road market in competition with Land Rover. One industry source said: "Those restrictions will remain in place."
A spokesman for Shanghai Automotive declined to comment. BMW has always controlled the rights to the Rover marque even after it sold the car maker to Phoenix Venture Holdings for £10 in 2000, leasing the right to make Rover cars to Phoenix free of charge. However when the car maker collapsed last May, control of the Rover marque returned to Munich. In March this year, Helmut Panke, the company's chief executive, admitted BMW was fielding a number of offers for the Rover trademark.
News of the sale is a boost for Shanghai Automotive, which bought the intellectual property rights to the Rover 25 and 75 for £67m in late 2004, months before MG Rover went into administration.
Shanghai Automotive was disappointed to lose out to Chinese rival Nanjing Automotive which picked up the production lines and assets at Longbridge from the company's administrator for £53m last July.
The Birmingham Post reported that Nanjing, which is hoping to start making MG cars at Longbridge next year, had offered to buy the Rover marque for £500,000 in a bid to keep control in the UK. However, a Nanjing spokesman said that it was not interested in buying the Rover marque. The spokesman said: "The only bit they are interested in is the MG brand."
The Viking long ship now looks set to adorn the new versions of the Rover 25 and 75, currently under development in China.
rand lover?
Doogle
Chi-com garbage polluting and bastardizing the Rover marque? Very sad. I'd rather see it end in oblivion, as with Oldsmobile, than these trash-scum taking it over and polluting it.
Curse on BMW's Helmut Panke, for aborting it. Scumbag.
Amen.
I once owned a Rover 825 sedan. It had a poltergeist which at times locked the doors, other times disabled the windows, as if the Prince of Darkness still held sway. When the air conditioning went out, and I was advised that a set of hoses would set me back $600, I sold it. Pity, as it was a sexy, though haunted, sort of car. It had an Acura motor so it was a half-British, half-Japanese sort of thing.
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