I never heard of LDV..? was it like a MG or much smaller and less popular?
By James Mackintosh in London and Arkady Ostrovsky in Moscow
Published: 31/7/2006 | Last Updated: 31/7/2006 18:15 London Time
Russia's Gaz Group became the latest foreign buyer of a British vehicle factory on Monday, paying £50m ($93m) for the loss-making Birmingham vanmaker LDV.
Gaz, 80 per cent owned by the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, pledged to keep the company's Washwood Heath factory and its 850 workers even as it prepared parallel production of the leading LDV van in Russia.
The move follows the sale of the defunct carmaker MG Rover to China's Nanjing Automobile and the purchase of the sports car producer TVR by Nikolai Smolenski, son of another Russian multi-millionaire.
Gaz has also set up an international headquarters in the UK to look for further acquisitions and joint ventures to expand its cars, trucks and tractors conglomerate outside Russia. It is already in talks about buying part or all of VM Motori, the diesel engine supplier to LDV that is owned by the US car dealer Roger Penske and Germany's DaimlerChrysler.
"The overriding objective is to try to double the size of the Gaz global business by 2011," said Martin Leach, the former head of Ford of Europe and Maserati who joined the Gaz board and became chairman of LDV on Monday. That means increasing Gaz's turnover from $3.5bn to about $7bn in five years, much of it from increasing the $700m currently made outside the former Soviet states.
Gaz is understood to have paid about £50m to LDV's private equity owners, Sun Capital of the US and European Acquisition Capital, with the possibility of further payments linked to performance. Gaz is understood to be investing about another £100m to assemble LDV vans in Russia and expand distribution, particularly outside the UK.
Sun has refused to say how much it paid for LDV six months ago when it used a 24-hour administration to buy the van-maker without £234m of liabilities, most owed to trade creditors. But a person close to the deal said LDV cost Sun £53m.
Steve Young, the former AT Kearney motor consultant app***ointed as chief executive of LDV, said the company hoped to increase Birmingham van production by 50 per cent next year to 15,000 and would be keeping the factory. He said it could add to the 850-strong workforce if sales went as planned, and in the longer term the company had the capacity to build 50,000 vans in the UK.
The expansion of Gaz contrasts with most Russian carmakers, who are struggling against a wave of foreign investment.
By James Mackintosh in London and Arkady Ostrovsky in Moscow
Published: 31/7/2006 | Last Updated: 31/7/2006 18:15 London Time
Russia's Gaz Group became the latest foreign buyer of a British vehicle factory on Monday, paying £50m ($93m) for the loss-making Birmingham vanmaker LDV.
Gaz, 80 per cent owned by the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, pledged to keep the company's Washwood Heath factory and its 850 workers even as it prepared parallel production of the leading LDV van in Russia.
The move follows the sale of the defunct carmaker MG Rover to China's Nanjing Automobile and the purchase of the sports car producer TVR by Nikolai Smolenski, son of another Russian multi-millionaire.
Gaz has also set up an international headquarters in the UK to look for further acquisitions and joint ventures to expand its cars, trucks and tractors conglomerate outside Russia. It is already in talks about buying part or all of VM Motori, the diesel engine supplier to LDV that is owned by the US car dealer Roger Penske and Germany's DaimlerChrysler.
"The overriding objective is to try to double the size of the Gaz global business by 2011," said Martin Leach, the former head of Ford of Europe and Maserati who joined the Gaz board and became chairman of LDV on Monday. That means increasing Gaz's turnover from $3.5bn to about $7bn in five years, much of it from increasing the $700m currently made outside the former Soviet states.
Gaz is understood to have paid about £50m to LDV's private equity owners, Sun Capital of the US and European Acquisition Capital, with the possibility of further payments linked to performance. Gaz is understood to be investing about another £100m to assemble LDV vans in Russia and expand distribution, particularly outside the UK.
Sun has refused to say how much it paid for LDV six months ago when it used a 24-hour administration to buy the van-maker without £234m of liabilities, most owed to trade creditors. But a person close to the deal said LDV cost Sun £53m.
Steve Young, the former AT Kearney motor consultant app***ointed as chief executive of LDV, said the company hoped to increase Birmingham van production by 50 per cent next year to 15,000 and would be keeping the factory. He said it could add to the 850-strong workforce if sales went as planned, and in the longer term the company had the capacity to build 50,000 vans in the UK.
The expansion of Gaz contrasts with most Russian carmakers, who are struggling against a wave of foreign investment.
