So long Land Rover! Fwd: Fr, 17.03.2000 22:30 CET (English edition)

[Michael Beck <mbeck@xxxxxxxxxx>]

No big loss me thinks...now they can focus on what's important...


>"What's going on in Germany - a summary of daily news from
>               Germany
>- BMW spins off Land Rover
>
>After selling off the high-loss brands "Rover" and "MG", BMW will now
>sell its lucrative affiliate "Land Rover", maker of the famous
>all-terrain
>vehicle. Land Rover will be sold to the US's Ford Motor Corporation.
>BMW boss Milberg said this had been a hard decison for the
>corporation,
>but in view of the necessity of restructuring BMW, Ford's DM 6 bn
>offer
>was exceedingly welcome, the more so as BMW with its model X5 car
>was engaging the all-terrain market on its own. As to the sale of
>Rover
>and MG, he said that the billions of losses had exceeded the limit of
>corporate responsibility. Besides the disappointing sales curve of
>the two makes, the parity loss of the DM against the pound contributed
>DM 700 mn to last year's record loss. Milberg stressed that BMW would
>center its attention on their own brand and also develop a lower
>middle
>class model.

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