Obit - MG Rover

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 11 Apr 05 - 10:43 PM

I agree that the UK engineering is bigger than France, Germany and Spain but those governments are actively encouraging exports unlike the UK government.

In the future they will have bigger and better engineering based exports, whilst the lack of govt support for our forces more decline.

Small to medium sized engineering companies in the UK often have a hard time getting support for some very good products. Breaking into markets in the Far East is not easy and takes time and quite a lot of money.

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 11 Apr 05 - 08:43 AM

LAND Rover or RANGE Rover, Kendall?

Shanghaiceltic, you may be depressed by the UK's lack of presence in manufacturing markets, but the fact remains that the UK economy is bigger than those of the countries you cited.

There is immense engineering and technological competence in the UK - Oxford, Cambridge and the University of London (Imperial College) are still among the foremst in the world in this field. Car manufacture is not the best way to exploit it.

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: jonm
Date: 11 Apr 05 - 08:24 AM

They used to say there were only two man-made objects visible from space, the Great Wall of China and the shut lines (gaps between panels) on a Range Rover!

Many of the engineers affected by the manufacturing downturn have gone into the manufacture of specialist or bespoke machinery. There is a huge number of small specialist firms supporting motorsport, making popemobiles and landrover ambulances for the UN and one-offs in every area. The most shrewd of these are starting to see their workforce ageing and the need to take on apprentices before the skills are lost, but without government acknowledgement and support, all these skills will be gone.

GUEST, above, used the phrase "genteel poverty" most appropriately, in my opinion. This country's family silver has been tarnished, lost or forgotten and I doubt it will be retrieved.

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: kendall
Date: 11 Apr 05 - 08:11 AM

Sad news. When I toured the UK in 1990, I hired a Rover, and it was efficient and quite comfortable.

The Land Rover? terrible reputation here; broke down all the time, wouldn't give one hell room.

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 11 Apr 05 - 03:22 AM

It is sad to see the decline of manufacturing and engineering in the UK, successive governments both Labour and Conservative have ignored the fact the the UK has some of the finest engineering universities and colleges in the world and have failed to get younger people into engineering. Those same educational establishments are having ther funding cut at the same time.

The engineering apprenticeship fell victim to unions demanding the close to the same wages as a skilled person for the apprentices, making the those companies who did have engineering apprenticeships pull out because of the much higher costs.

I recently went to a number of exhibitions here in China, we were the only British company present. If you looked at the large stands which the German, French, and Spanish governments sponsor it makes you feel quite depressed that our own government seems to only ever see the UK as a place from which to supply finance services, lawyers, and other so called service industries.

Schools do not seem to be able to provide a real basis from which to get into engineering and besides which you can earn more money as a lawyer, banker or an accountant. Without new engineers we will have no new engineering industry, without that there will be less and less employment opportunity for manufacturing workers.

Without good engineers existing companies products will lack improvements or their production methods will not be optimised to produce savings and therefore better margins. The products become dated, lose sales and ultimately the company will close as no one will want to buy old designs with poor reliability.

If the Chinese do still buy MG Rover who's to say that the manufacturing will remain in the UK and not be moved to China anyway? With the low cost of labour here and the high cost of cars then manufacturing in China is a no brainer.

BTW as an indicator I bought a GM Sail, the closest equivalent is a Corsa or a Berlinetta. Made here in Shanghai and the price was still about 2000 pounds higher than it would have been in the UK.

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 07:02 PM

In a country with wages and living standards like ours, manufacturing is dead. We need to do what the Victorians did, show initiative and start a new way. Blair is right to make education a priority. If our young do not respond, they will be condemned to fritter away their inheritance on booze and a good time. If they pick up the baton we can go forward, as America turns itself into a fundamentalist country that, like all of that ilk, begins to say no to scientific progress on theological grounds. The most religious countries in the world are generally the poorest, so this is our opportunity to re-create ourselves with science, medicine, art etc. If we don't other European countries will and we will sink into genteel poverty and dreams about the good old days. Now is the time to kick arse and change our culture for the better, we cannot compete with the Far East and their poverty wages or the shareholders who would rather see a bigger return on their investment than british jobs can offer.

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: GUEST,Bainbo
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 06:48 PM

Thanks to good old election bribes, it looks like the obit may be premature - or at least delayed. Check this out.

Incidentally, Giok, I think that's "a mess of pottage".

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 02:32 PM

One source of confusion may be the shifting use of the expression "intellectual property". Of course the old Iron Curtain countries, and many of the new tiger economies have often copied wholesale - infringing "intellectual property" in the old sense, not least because in those countries the relevant rights did not exist. Now in many cases they exist but are not enforced.

The value of MG in particular arises from "intellectual property" in a new, debased (some might say) sense, in the world of "brand values" where the product matters not at all, merely the cachet of its presentation, eg "Caterpillar" for boots, "Diesel" for men's scents (whatever happened to Bombay Rum?), and so on. In this world,the value of a Daewoo doubles if it is branded as a Chevrolet, and teh value of a Volkswagen halves if it is branded "Skoda". The Chinese cannot brand their products as "MG" in the world market without obtaining at least licences of key copyrights and trade marks.

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 11:02 AM

Maybe Shanghaiceltic could quote one or two sources for the wilder of his assertions. The Range Rover was a worldbeater for two generations, truly in a class of its own as Richard Bridges has just expressed it. MayShanghaiceltic is thinking of the shoddy ill-conceived budget version of a SUV, the Land Rover Freelander, which has indeed had all kinds of problems.

Contrary to Shanghaiceltic's undrstanding, there is a wide consesus among analysts that MG Rover's intellectual property was a key element in any potential deal. But most of that knwledge has filtered to the Chinese already through a series of sub-deals, according to Alchemy - the venture capitalists who five years ago were keen to acquire the Longbridge operation, but only as a niche supplier exploiting the MG brand.

I'd be all for governmenta intervention if it was along the state-ownership lines proposed by Richard. Such intervention was the salvation of Rools-Royce, for instnace - a major world player in high-technology aero-engineering ever since. And intervention in that case was by HEath's Tory governmenet. I oppose intervention only when it is an opportunity for people like the Phoenix people to leech money out of the public purse into their own bank accounts.

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 05:25 AM

Apart from the huge investment in bosses pensions, the new bosses also made some very silly decisions, like wasting their precious development budget on the £82,000 supercar that would never sell in volume (indeed, I think maybe it never sold any at all because it was not quite on the pace) and much of the development budget for that (and the contribution to the silly selling price) went on the carbon fibre (and therefore almost impossible to repair) bodyshell.

The big-engined rally All Aggro actually looked and went rather well.
The Ital was never properly sorted in the suspension but the apprentices made an experimental model with MGB gearbox and various mods that was very well written up, and the Marina GT while handling like a clubfooted cow dancing on a hemispherical iceberg went like a rat up a drainpipe at well below the cost of the opposition, and mostly stayed in one piece even if treated roughly.
The Range Rovers and Land Rovers were and are quite simply in a class of their own - the best off-road cars (with on-road capability to some extent) in the world, for all time. They will go places, and be repairable (well, Landrovers, anyway) in places the US and Japanese off-roaders can only dream of reaching.

Personally, I think it should be nationalised, as should the railways and post office, mines, gas and gas reserves, health service, telecommunications infrastructure, and television. The nature of capitalism ensures that investment is always sucked out to enrich shareholders and bosses, and in particular safety and responsibility are only observed during the rare moments when the cat is actually watching the rat.

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: GUEST,Shanghaiceltic
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 04:43 AM

Very little in the news here about it, but there again the Chinese Govt controlled newspapers only like good news.

China has a huge car industry. Not only JV's between the big companies like GM, VW (hudley sucessfull), Ford, Honda, etc etc but also a domestic one too. Not many of you will have ever seen or ridden in a Hong Chi (Red Flag) a Wulin, Jiangsu AC, or a Jinbei.

China really wanted the name MG, they do not need the technology, they have that already. Many Chinese cars are blatant copies of foreign ones.

Sad to see MG go but the Rover group in its time produced some bloody awful cars. The Allegro (All Aggro), the Ital (It'll go wrong) and the Range Rovers are plagued by technical problems.

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 06:43 AM

Not "frittered away" John. About £40 million of it was wisely invested in remuneration and pension packages for the four members of Phoenix. And before we start moaning, let's remember that those guys were prepared to plough a staggering £10 of their own money into the project at zero risk to themselves. The guest is quite right: if there were still communist shop stewards and an occasional strike or two, such public-spirited sacrifices would be severely constrained.

PoppaGator made some good points.

The Chinese, or any other potential strategic partner, has the government absolutely over a barrel, as no doubt they have been planning for a year or two. They were always interested in talking because MG Rober does have the kind of technologies and know-how they needed. But they've already acquired much of the intellectual property they were after, and according to some reports, the Chinese group already owns the MG badge.

No responsible government would risk getting sucked into this quagmire. The one we've got should put all its energy into explaining the rationale, and showing how the British economy can prosper without reliance on middle-grade technologies like car manufacturing. But explaining is something this government has run away from more than any other. All it can do is research opinion, then blow with the wind. Any thought of taking an initiative or showing leadership would be regarded as sheer lunacy.

Just to keep this in sensible perspective, the impact of Longbridge closing, in terms of job losses and community disruption, will be a drop on the bucket against the pit closure program - which new Labour would put into effect tomorrow if Thatcher hadn't already done it.

On other thing: THIS THREAD NEEDS A BS PREFIX PLEASE, if any Mudelfs are listening.

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 06:25 AM

Thanks to Mudelf for moving this below the line, I intended it as BS.

RtS

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 04:33 AM

5 years ago the Phoenix Consortium paid a nominal £10 for a company with £55 million in capital assets, all they have done since is lose money. Now that this £55 million has run out they are faced with reality, and the first thing they can think of to do is sell the company to the Chinese. No wonder they don't want such a liability, the capital was frittered away and at no time in those 5 years did MG Rover make a profit, who wants to buy a loss making company? The UK government should not bail them out, but they should prosecute the consortium for fraud, and make sure that they end up as hard up as their redundant employees will soon be.
Giok

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 03:43 AM

Which, JonM, is why the globalisation of capital is but another term for a conspiracy of the rich against the poor.

Subject: RE: Obit - MG Rover
From: jonm
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 03:23 AM

Since the last takeover, the new management has kept the workers in jobs. No investment in new product, so the product lines are even further out of date than before. Any new arrivals have been either facelifts or new models already under development which have been finished, albeit with reduced development budget.

The Chinese want a takeover to gain some European R&D experience and the Rover name still carries some cachet overseas. As with all deals with the Chinese, though, they will expect a "sweetener" and that is what neither the management nor the government are prepared to pay.

My suspicion is that Tony Bliar will save the day some time soon with a lot of heroics and spin and it will be several years before we find out how much of our money went into saving those jobs in the short term.

I would spend the same sum investing in subsidies and retraining for the thousands of workers at Longbridge and the supply chain and let the dying duck go. Mis-use of pension funds should be made an offence - if the pension fund had not been used as the R&D budget, a lot of the workforce would happily take early retirement.

There is no future for bulk manufacturing in a country where the hourly rate of pay exceeds the weekly wage in South East Asia.

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: GUEST,RSPCA
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 03:54 PM

MG Rover !!!????


Martin Gibsons dog has died..????

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 03:52 PM

We have sold our birthright for a pot of message to the EEC, and because of that we can't subsidise our own companies if we want, not that I think MG Rover deserve a lot of our money. The MG side is producing decent cars and the engine side is producing good engine for both MG Rover cars and others. They have a new model all ready to roll which could be ready for next year and it meets all current EEC legislation, and that is miles ahead of a lot of the other motor manufacturers. I happen to think the present range of Rover cars are nice cars, but for some reason [marketing?] they have never caught on. I suspect that there is a bit of carry over from the bad old days which didn't help them.
Giok

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: MG Rover
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 12:36 PM

The rumour of my death is premature.

MG

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 12:33 PM

Surely this should be below the line.

Yes, I think it's sad, not least because I really like the ZTT. Bring back import controls at least on imports from countries outside the EC where workers are exploited! If one can embargo Cuba or Iraq for political reasons, why not the world of sweated labour?

However this is a case which might not have happened were it not for EC bans on subsidies.

The real strike merchants were always Ford's Dagenham plant, not Austin/Morris/Rover etc.

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: Rasener
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 11:51 AM

I think the real concern is for the many families who will lose their income. Suerly thats worth saving. Plus all the small companies that rely on the work to keep open and provide work for many people.

It really is the knock on effect that concerns me.

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: The Beast of Farlington
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 11:39 AM

MG Rover's reputation as strike-ridden is well in the past now anyway so it is hardly relevant to what is going on now.

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: Tyke
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 11:34 AM

About time GUEST were banned from posting it wouldnt have have happened 20 years ago the GUESTs would be to busy hitting Miners Over the head with Battons. Capatalist Swine

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: PoppaGator
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 11:31 AM

When the US Treasury bailed out Chrysler a quarter-century or so ago, it was very controversial. Attitudes mellowed quite a bit when the company surprisingly recovered; I think that the invention/introduction of the minivan in 1984 marked Chrysler's turnaround, which would date the government bailout back in the late 70s or very early 80s.

Of course, Chrylser has since merged with (i.e.,. been taken over by) a German company, Daimler Benz. But whether the company is "American" anymore or not, most of the autoworkers still have their jobs.

So-called "American" corporations are really mulitinational anyway. I don't think the geographical location of top management matters much anymore. Employees of Jaguar are better off having jobs with Ford Motor Company than being unemployed former workers for a defunct British firm.

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 11:23 AM

Austin.Morris.BMC.British Leyland!! Shambolic, permanently on strike thanks to communist shop stewards.Their day has long gone.Welcome to the real world brothers!

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: The Beast of Farlington
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 11:18 AM

I'm afraid Rover couldn't compete. They had dressed some pretty old cars up in new clothes and had run out of time to come up with new models. The sales figures tell the story.

I think the management have a lot to answer for. On the other hand, but for them, this is a thread you would have been reading 5 years ago.

I don't think it is for the government to sort out. They are a private company and I'll bet there are many others who would like a government loan. Ultimately it comes down to whether they are selling enough cars that people want more than other brands.

It's strange that many people who accuse the Labour government of being a nanny state think that they should rescue a failing company (not including present company, by the way).

I feel sorry for all the workers at Rover as I think they have been ill-served by their bosses. But I don't think it is an issue for government.

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: GUEST,Giok
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 10:35 AM

Yes ;~) sad innit?
G ¦¬]

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: Rasener
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 09:53 AM

Labour will lose a few seats in the election, if they don't get things sorted out quickly.

Strong labour area.

Subject: RE: Obit: MG Rover
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 09:51 AM

Jaguar owned by Ford an American company. We don't have a car industry of our own anymore.
If BMW couldn't make it work what chance did those 4 asset strippers have, that is if they ever intended it to work after they'd set up their £1000000 pension schemes.
Mind you I was listening to a programme the other day saying that the US motor industry was struggling too, especially since the increase in the price of fuel which makes the big SUVs which they were making money on too expensive to run.
Giok

Subject: Obit: MG Rover
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 09:38 AM

So farewell then, Austin,Morris, BMC, British Leyland ,MG Rover.
Our first car was a Mini and we had several Metros. Most of my schoolmates who didn't stay on to go to college went onto Longbridge or to one of the component firms.
The City of a Thousand Trades is losing another one, but Jaguar hangs on.

A nation mourns.

RtS
("I never will drive MG Rover again so it's no, nay never...")