Those of you who were worried that Ford’s sale of Jaguar and Land Rover to Mr Tata was an act of desperation, necessary to keep the company afloat, need worry no more.
Instead, ‘Out with the old, in with the new’ seems to be Ford’s remedy for its cashflow crisis. Even though the Indian take away deal has yet to be delivered, Ford has already announced its intention to spend a fistful of rupees in Romania, where it plans to buy the old Daewoo factory.
But because the factory at Craiova is largely owned by the Romanian government, 1,600,700,000 rupees (give or take) will go straight into its coffers in order to satisfy complex EU rules on state aid. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say that this corporate back-hander will in due course enable Ford to build cars in Romania that it didn’t want to build in Britain.
Given the wheels within deals nature of the globalised automotive industry, I can see the headlines a year from now: “Tata outsources X-Type production to old Daewoo plant. Extra shed needed’.
That’s an interesting and logical projection…. I’ll keep an eye on “Ford Watch”
AlfaMartini | 01 Mar 08 - 14:291,600,700,000 rupees is roughly 20 million pounds! Hardly a boring detail Graham!
Dimitri Dontas | 03 Mar 08 - 16:27