from German STERN magazin, February 24 th 2000
"With regard to the general meeting of BMW in May the battle for BMW will reach
the decisive phase. That s because of the bad condition of BMW´s British
daughter Rover. Losses in 1998: 1,9 billions DM. Losses in 1999: some 3
billions
DM. Despite official denials of the Quandt family (owning 46,6 % of BMW) it is
well known that they are not willing to carry the weight of Rover any more. A
member of the managing board of a German competition company said: "If the
Quandt family wants to sell their part of BMW they have to do it as long as
it has some value."
Besides a pretended taking over offer from Ford there are still GM and VW in
the
race. Ford would like to have BMW besides Jaguar, Aston Martin, Volvo and
Lincoln as the fifth luxury marque. And GM is urgently in need of an other
luxury marque besides Cadillac and Saab to revalorize the disastrous image of
American cars in Germany.
VW would probably be satisfied with a shares majoritiy. And VW boss Piech wants
to prevent that Rolls Royce, now owned by VW, makes it´s way to BMW in 2003 as
written in the contract about Rolls Royce. And BMW could use the Polo and
Golf/Rabbit platform for the future small Rovers which would save Rover
billions
of development costs.
In public, Ferdinand Piech, nephew of Ferdinand Porsche and big shareholder of
Porsche sportscars, doesn t say much about this subject. Experts assume that he
was pushing Porsche boss Wendelin Wiedeking to attack BMW with his comlain at
the EU about the Rover subsidys of the British government. If the EU agrees,
Rover will be lost and BMW ready for the raid.
Analysts give VW the best chances in the competition about BMW. Peter Schmidt:
"Money is not decisive. If Ford or GM would take over BMW there would be the
danger that BMW would no longer invest the same amount of money in design and
development and after a short time lose it s image for making technical
advanced
cars. But VW and BMW would complete each other nicely."
Gerhard Wiederholl
CC 31998 LO
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Altman <jaltman@altlaw.com>
To: 'triumphs@autox. team. net' (E-mail) <triumphs@autox.team.net>
Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2000 12:04 PM
Subject: Rover news
>
> >From Yahoo news:
>
> LONDON (Reuters) - General Motors Corp. may offer BMW (BMWG.DE) use of its
> Astra production platform to produce new Rover models in exchange for Land R
> over and/or a stake in the luxury German carmaker, the Sunday Times reported
> .
> The newspaper said General Motors was interested in BMW's Land Rover and the
> U.S. carmaker may suggest its German rival use the platform of its Astra mod
> els for a successor to the Rover 25 and 45 in return for the British off-roa
> d vehicles manufacturer.
> While General Motors is interested in BMW as a whole, the newspaper said tha
> t this interest did not extend to Rover's volume British car plants in Birmi
> ngham and Oxford.
> A number of carmakers are thought to have approached BMW with proposals to h
> elp solve its problems with its loss making Rover car unit which it bought i
> n 1994. Rumors have swirled that BMW may be looking to exit Rover either by
> selling it or ending production of Rover cars.
> Speculation has also been rife that the billionaire Quandt industrial dynast
> y may be poised to sell their 48 percent in BMW and a number of suitors incl
> uding General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG (VOWG.F) have been ru
> mored to be interested.
>
>
>
> Jim Altman jaltman@altlaw.com Illigitimi non Carborundum
> http://www.altlaw.com/metro/jaltman.html 69-TR6 80-TR8 W4UCK
>
>
>
>
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