home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
111389
/
11138900.023
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-19
|
2KB
|
36 lines
BUSINESS, Page 83Ford's Sporty New Number
Cash starved and struggling, Britain's Jaguar PLC has decided
to take the course favored by many an aristocrat facing hard times:
marrying into money. Last week, three days after Japanese investors
bought a majority interest in Rockefeller Center, the 67-year-old
maker of sleek, purring luxury sports cars and sedans agreed to be
taken over by America's Ford Motor for $2.5 billion. The deal is
likely to win approval from the required 75% of Jaguar's
stockholders.
Ford, flush with profits after four prosperous years, will
acquire instant access to the market for ultra-luxurious driving
machines. Automotive experts expect Jaguar to use the cash infusion
to develop new, more competitively priced models.
As Britain's last major independent producer of luxury cars,
Jaguar had fought hard to go it alone. The company earned $45
million last year but lost $1.8 million during the first six months
of 1989, largely because of slumping U.S. sales. Jaguar tried to
fend off Ford's advances by offering General Motors a 30% stake in
the British firm. But last week the British government opened the
way for Ford by waiving London's legislative right to veto any
takeover of Jaguar before 1991. Ford put its offer on the table the
next morning. GM officials decided the price was too high and
withdrew.
Ford has promised Jaguar's officials a large degree of freedom
in running the company. Even so, John Lawson, a London-based
analyst for Nomura Research Institute, predicts that Ford will have
to invest an additional $1.5 billion to improve Jaguar's
production, which would bring the total investment to $4 billion.
"That is going to be very hard for Ford to recover in the
marketplace," Lawson warns. But then, status symbols seldom come
cheap.