AROnline news

John Reed, Financial Times, 25th January, 2010

Jaguar Land Rover said that David Smith was stepping down as Chief Executive Officer and that Tata Motors, its Indian owner, would assist in the handover while it searched for a new head.

The UK luxury marque said nothing about a possible replacement for Mr Smith, except that the group planned to make an announcement “in due course”. Mr Smith took the job in 2008 after the death of Geoff Polites, his predecessor.

During Mr Smith’s tenure, sales of Jaguar’s sports cars and Land Rover’s 4x4s slumped due to the spike in petrol prices and the global financial crisis, which hit large and expensive vehicles the hardest.

Last year, Jaguar sold 51,855 vehicles – 21 per cent fewer than in 2008 – and Land Rover’s 2009 sales were 144,400, 23 per cent lower. JLR announced Mr Smith’s departure in an e-mail to staff on Monday.

Ravi Kant, Tata Motors’ Chief Executive and a Director of JLR, would “assist with the handover of David’s duties and assume day-to-day responsibilities of the Chief Executive until David’s permanent successor is announced”, the company said.

Tata has pumped at least £1.2bn ($1.9bn) into JLR to cover losses at the two brands since buying them from Ford Motor for $2.3bn in early 2008.

JLR would not comment on the reasons for Mr Smith’s departure on Monday, nor its plans to search for a successor. Carl-Peter Forster, who stepped down as head of GM’s European operations last year after the Detroit carmaker’s botched attempt to sell Opel to a Russian-Canadian consortium, has been tipped as a possible successor.

Mr Smith led long-running talks by JLR and Tata with the British Government on loan guarantees that began in 2008, and which were abandoned in October after Tata succeeded in raising financing for the UK carmaker from the State Bank of India and other sources.

The company, which employs about 14,500 people and runs three UK production plants, has cut its staff by about 2,500 since the beginning of the crisis.

Last year it said that it would close one of its two plants in the West Midlands – Jaguar’s in Castle Bromwich or Land Rover’s in Sollihull, both near Birmingham. The company is due to announce which will close by the middle of 2010, but it will not shut the plant until the middle of this decade because it is still building vehicles at both sites.

Reporting its third-quarter results, Tata said JLR earned an operating profit of £41m in the third quarter of last year, an improvement of £75m on the previous quarter.

JLR would not comment on the reasons for Mr Smith’s departure on Monday, nor its plans to search for a successor. Carl-Peter Forster, who stepped down as head of GM’s European operations last year after the Detroit carmaker’s botched attempt to sell Opel to a Russian-Canadian consortium, has been tipped as a possible successor.

[Source: Financial Times]

Jaguar Land Rover Castle Bromwich, David Smith, Geoff Polites, Ravi Kant, Solihull, Tata Motors

MINI Countryman

MINI’s new Sport Activity Vehicle receives the historic Countryman name, but the five-door variation on the theme is an entirely new – and enlarged – proposition. Unlike the Clubman and subsequent concept vehicles, the new car receives five conventional doors and optional four-wheel drive. 

The MINI Countryman comes as standard with four seats, while a three-seat bench is available as a no-cost option. The interior offers superior comfort also on long distances, with generous legroom, headroom and shoulder freedom. The rear seats move fore-and-aft either individually or in a 60 : 40 (three-seat bench) split while the backrests may be tilted for angle either individually or in a 40 : 20 : 40 (three-seat bench) arrangement, increasing capacity in the luggage compartment from 350 to 1,170 litres (12.2–41.0 cu ft). 

The Countryman is significantly larger than the R56 family and sits rather higher off the ground. As an option the MINI Cooper S Countryman and MINI Cooper D Countryman are available with permanent MINI ALL4 all-wheel drive, an electrohydraulic differential positioned directly on the final drive varying the distribution from front to rear in an infinite process. 

Under normal driving conditions up to 50 per cent of the engine’s power goes to the rear wheels, under extreme conditions up to 100 per cent, offering a new, high-traction rendition of that agile handling so typical of MINI. This superior traction and drivetrain technology is based on the top-end suspension of the MINI including features such as the front axle with McPherson spring struts and forged track control arms, the multi-arm rear axle and EPS Electric Power Steering complete with Servotronic. 

The MINI Countryman furthermore comes as standard with DSC Dynamic Stability Control, DTC Dynamic Traction Control coming either as an option or as a standard feature on the MINI Cooper S Countryman and the MINI Cooper D Countryman with ALL4, as well as an electronic limited-slip function for the front axle differential. 

The Countryman seems likely to get the full range of available MINI engines with it being topped by the turbocharged 1.6-litre, packing 184bhp. Inside, the Countryman gets a typically MINI-esque dash, door panels and seats. 

You’ll be able to see more of the new Countryman at the Geneva Motor Show in March. 

MINI

Jon Griffin, Birmingham Mail, 15th January, 2010

LONGBRIDGE could have been sunk as long ago as 1994 by Japanese car giant Honda, former MG Rover Chairman John Towers has claimed. In a rare interview for a new West Midland book on the car industry, Mr Towers has revealed that the Japanese firm – which held a 20 per cent stake in Rover – could have thrown a huge spanner in the works of the deal that saw BMW take over at Longbridge from British Aerospace.

Acquisitions in the UK Car Industry, written by Coventry University Principal Lecturer Dr Emanuel Gomes, lifts the lid on the behind-the-scenes moves at Longbridge which saw the German group take control.

The takeover was to cost BMW billions of pounds, before the dramatic sale for just £10 to John Towers’ consortium in May 2000 saved thousands of jobs. The factory ran under the Towers regime for a further five years.

But MG Rover eventually collapsed amid debts of over £1 billion in April 2005, with the loss of 6500 jobs. Mr Towers, who has not spoken in depth about Longbridge since the 2005 closure, says in his interview with Dr Gomes: ‘One of the not hugely publicised issues at the time was that Honda could have sunk us.

‘Our agreement with Honda was that if we were bought by anyone else then the agreements would be terminated. I took the position with BMW that if Honda sinks us then they are mad, because it will sink them in the UK as far as the Swindon organisation was concerned and it will also sink them in a marketing sense.

‘The workforce and our employers knew that if we did not get Honda’s toys back in their pram then we had a major problem.’

The book also reveals that unions and management believed Longbridge could have survived under BMW if the German group had hung on at the Birmingham factory for another 18 months.

Vin Hammersley, former Director of Communications for BMW/Rover, says: ‘You have to look at six years long term before you know whether you have made a good buy… given time and given nerve by BMW it could have been a success.’

And Dave Osborne, National Secretary for the Car Industry of the T&G section of Unite the union, said: ‘If we had been 18 months further down the road, I don’t think they would have sold Rover.’

[Source: Birmingham Mail]

MG Rover BMW Group, Dave Osborne, Dr Emanuel Gomes, Honda, John Towers, Longbridge, Vin Hammersley