Jaguar, Land Rover Sold

Anthony Fontanelle
February 26, 2008

Some months back, the automotive industry has been bombarded with various pieces of news as per the fate of the Ford Motor Company’s Jaguar and Land Rover brands. These two are actually luxury brands that are part of Ford’s Premium Automotive Group (PAG).

What has been the seed as per the rumors regarding the fate of the two brands, it actually started with how the brands’ vehicles are doing in the market. For quite some time, Jaguar and Land Rover have been performing poorly in the market so much so that the Ford Motor Company has not been gaining much profit from the two brands. It is also not a secret that Ford has been under much financial stress lately because of declining profit and one of their solutions so as to help better their financial situation was to sell their two luxury brands.

When Jaguar and Land Rover was put up for sale, there were quite a number of parties and individuals who were interested in owning the two brands. However, Ford wanted to make sure that they were getting the best deal on the two brands. And what the Dearborn-based car maker did was to set up a system where interested purchasers could put in their bids for the luxury brands. This process took quite some time and experts were looking at the situation as a tactic from Ford so that they could properly study where they would be getting the best deal for Jaguar and Land Rover.

It seems like the end of the bidding for Jaguar and Land Rover has finally come to an end for a couple of days back, a newsletter from the American International Automobile Dealers Association (AIADA) carried news that the Ford Motor Company has finally chosen the right party who would purchase the two brands from them. Tata Motors from India would be the new owner of the vehicle and that the purchase of the brands is set to be announced this March 5th of 6th.

The purchase has already been finalized and Tata has already been talking with trade union leaders since last week. The national officer for one of the largest unions in the UK auto industry, Roger Maddison, has announced, “Everything seems fine as far as we are concerned; it's just the lawyers working on it now.”

One of the major outcomes of these talks include the fact that Tata would still be sourcing the brands’ engines, NGK laser platinum spark plugs, stampings, and other auto systems from Ford.

Source:  Amazines.com