Russian Billionaire To Be The Jaguar Brand's Savior?

Michelle Crimson
August 18, 2006

Stories and rumors are going about in the automotive industry. Especially now that the Jaguar brand is showing some signs of fragility in its sales and in its performance in the auto market. Previous reports have said that the Ford Motor Company, which now holds and has control on this brand, has already hired the expertise of a Wall Street guru in studying the fate of the said luxury vehicle brand.

Experts in the automotive industry are now saying that it is quite possible that the Jaguar brand could be having a new savior. And they are pointing at a Russian billionaire who is also an oligarch. This person could be quite the right type of buyer for this luxury brand. That is, if the Ford Motor Company is already intent on sending off its luxury brand to someone else’s hands. After all, the company is not performing as well as it used to in its golden years and it could be benefiting a lot from the finances that selling the Jaguar brand could bring. But it would also mean that the company would no longer have control over what types of new Jaguar products to offer the market and they would also not be able to produce more Jaguar XK140 parts and accessories that owners might be looking for.

Christoph Stuermer, an automotive industry analyst who works at Global Insight, even has set his sights on a certain Nikolai Smolensky. He states, “It would be a fantastic story, a real Cinderella story. If (Smolenksy) would say ‘Now that I have the soprts car what if I buy the sedans as well and make this into a real upscale British brand powerhouse?’”

The history of the Jaguar brand with the Ford Motor Company started out in 1989. The company bought the luxury brand for some 1.6 billion pounds. However, it seems like the company had a hard time to gain from the vehicle range.

Source:  Amazines.com