Administrators for MG Rover Group Ltd have said that the collapsed British automaker has been bought by Chinese carmaker Nanjing Automobile (Group) Corp (南京汽車).
The announcement on Friday ended months of speculation about the future of Rover, the UK's last major automaker, but also raised questions about how much production Nanjing would retain in the UK -- and how many jobs would be involved.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, which took over administration of Rover when the automaker filed for bankruptcy in April, said Nanjing had bought the assets of both MG Rover Group and its engine-producing subsidiary, Powertrain Ltd.
The terms were not disclosed. A person close to the deal, however, said Nanjing paid just over ?50 million (US$87 million).
Nanjing had faced two competitors in its bid to buy Rover's assets -- a similar offer from China's state-owned Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC,
Tony Lomas, joint administrator at PwC, said in a statement that the "level and conditionality of SAIC's bid left Nanjing's bid as the preferred way forward."
Unions had supported the SAIC deal because they believed it was the most likely to restart substantial production at Rover's Longbridge plant in central England, which was forced to close with the loss of 6,000 jobs when the company collapsed.
"Having viewed both the Nanjing and SAIC bids, there is no doubt in our mind that on first viewing the SAIC proposals appeared to suggest more jobs for Britain," said Tony Woodley, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union.
"It's disappointing, therefore, that the administrators have not seen fit to allow SAIC to complete its bidding process," he said.
Woodley said the union will now seek talks with Nanjing to discuss jobs.
Lomas said Nanjing plans to begin hiring staff to implement its plan for the company, which includes relocating the engine plant and some of the car production to China, while retaining some production in the UK. It also plans to develop a research and development and technical facility here.
Rover had hoped the earlier deal with SAIC would generate cash to allow it to introduce new models and stem the falling sales of its current makes. The company, which turned out 40 percent of the cars bought in the UK in the 1960s, had not produced a new model since 1998 and held only a 3 percent share of the market at the time of its collapse.
The British government plowed millions of pounds in emergency loans into the company to keep it operating for a short time as its bankruptcy provided an embarrassing backdrop to the ruling Labour Party's election campaign, which was centered on the strength of the British economy.
PwC ended those loans and closed the factory when the prospects of a bidder for the entire group appeared to vanish.
Some intellectual property rights for Rover models were sold to SAIC in a ?67 million deal last year, but the Chinese company does not hold the rights to produce the cars in Asia.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure