[Admin]

BMW to sell Rover name to Chinese?

BMW officials are in talks with two Chinese carmakers over the sale of the Rover brand name, which it still owns, reports The Times.

The Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation and Nanjing Automobile Corporation, both of which purchased substantial assets from the British firm when it went bankrupt last year, are both bidding for the brand name, as both intend to make models based on the former MG/Rover line-up. Nanjing owns the production lines, tooling and associated assets, and has renewed the lease on the Longbridge factory site, where it intends to re-start production using the MG brand name; SAIC has the blueprints and intellectual property rights to the 25, 45 and 75 ranges. However, the first refusal for the name is to be given to Ford, under the terms of the deal made when BMW sold Land Rover to Ford in 2000.

These talks were confirmed just as BMW announced that it expected to achieve record earnings in this financial year, with before-tax profits of £2.75bn
http://www.channel4.com/4car/news/news-story.jsp?news_id=14219

 

[mgrovernut]

It's hotting up. But if SAIC do get it then they will have to make a model in the UK to maintain the brand appeal. People in the UK will refuse to buy a Rover on principle if SAIC are seen to have shipped all the jobs to China. Rover can be a good brand for SAIC if it understands the need to make at least one model in the UK.

 

[I_Hate_China]

its going to be all UK based marketing and technology, why even emphasize BOUGHT BY CHINESE...chinese cant make cars, the only reason this will work is cause they are buying NON Chinese CARS

 

[edge]

What is your problem? Why are you coming into this forum with that handle, I HATE CHINA. Why should we even take any of your garbage seriously if all of your posts will be anti-China?

Anyways, Chinese can make cars and they are improving on it. If China can make spacecraft, they can certainly make cars.

 

[mgrovernut]

I_hate_China's views is exactly why Nanjing must keep one fot in the UK with MG. The British public will need to believe that the cars they are buying are as good as anyone else's. Using ARUP to design and engineer the cars is a smart move, building one volume car (the ZT) will inspire confidence.

If SAIC do just make Rover's in China then people in the UK will just turn away in distain, they must prove they aren't merely asset stripping and that they understand the brands.

IMHO Nanjing and SAIC should collaborate,,,

 

[Admin]

Business, The (London) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 16--China is master of the long game. And Beijing's decision 20 years ago to limit international car giants to less than 50 percent stakes in China's car plants is a case in point. Since that time Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC) has become China's second-biggest car maker through its SAIC-GM and SAIC-Volkswagen joint ventures.
http://oascentral.tmcnet.com/RealMe...330-280.gif/31383261383936353433663463613030?

But last Monday SAIC announced it was going it alone. The company plans to spend $1.25bn (E1.0bn, 700m) setting up SAIC Motor Manufacturing, which will make and sell up to 200,000 own-brand cars by 2010, with 30 different models springing from five base designs

That's a boon for any of those UK middle managers who developed a taste for Rover saloons in their 1980s heyday. They'll be able to buy Rover 75s again, this time at "made in China" prices. They may even have a choice of two manufacturers.

SAIC plans to start building Rover 75s at the end of this year. Its rival Nanjing Auto plans to start producing a near-identical MG design early next year.

There will be a nasty squabble over patents. SAIC secured intellectual property rights to certain Rover cars under a deal it did before the British company's collapse. Nanjing gained rights when it bought MG Rover from its administrators last year. Both companies are now competing to buy the Rover brand from BMW.

But SAIC's move is also further evidence for those Cassandras who see GM's future as both bleak and short.

GM has long been propping up its loss-making operations in the US with highly profitable car-making plants in China. SAIC's decision to transfer the technological and management skills it has absorbed as GM's partner and use them to develop its own brands is an ominous development.

Wang Xiaoqiu, who will run SAIC Motor, spent 14 years with Volkswagen China, and the rest of the company's staff will also come from one of its two joint ventures. At Monday's conference, Xiaoqiu stressed he did not see SAIC's own brands competing with the joint ventures until 2010. But what then?

source: tmcnet.com

 

[Windy]

Maybe this should be in the SAIC forum since it mentions SAIC far more than Nanjing


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MG-Rover taking over the world:
First SAIC in China
Then ICML in India (http://www.icml.co.in/profile.html)
Next Nanjing in China again....