Unions could force Ford to retain stake in Jaguar & LR

Posted Wed Jan 30 2008 9:27 AM by Viknesh Vijayenthiran

Ford wants to have no part of Jaguar or Land Rover following its eventual sale of the Premier Auto Group labels. The Blue Oval made an announcement stating so as far back as September last year, but cutting off its ties with either Jaguar or Land Rover isn’t as straightforward as selling off some shares.

Numerous Jaguar and Land Rover models share components with Ford vehicles, such as powertrains, interior pieces and at one point even whole vehicle platforms, but according to a new report this isn’t the only hurdle the carmakers will have to overcome if they want a clean break. Thomson Financial is reporting that trade unions are demanding Ford retain a stake to ensure continuity of production at the three Jaguar and Land Rover plants in the UK. These three plants alone employ more than 16,500 people.

Officials from Ford and the unions will be visiting new (unofficial) owner Tata in India next month to gather inside knowledge of the Indian carmaker’s inner workings. A major stumbling block the unions face, however, is that if Ford was to retain a stake in the two carmakers then Jaguar and Land Rover would have to be spun off into a new entity that Tata would become a majority shareholder, something we’re sure Tata officials aren’t looking forward to.

Reader Comments

Wed Jan 30 2008 9:48 AM
chris says

interesting. ive been thinking about this problem and maybe ford should retain a percentage that best represents the technical integration they (PAG) have with the rest of ford. ofcourse, TATA would have the ability to phase out that involvement and be contractually obligated to buy that stock from ford as they phase out fords tech.

as per union unrest about production moving out of GB,... I dont know if they can really be 100% confident about that when you're talking about TATA.
Wed Jan 30 2008 10:46 AM
Gus says

Sounds like Britian is suffering in many of the same ways the US auto industry is.
Wed Jan 30 2008 1:20 PM
SuperSkyline89 says

Well, Land Rover and Jaguar are . . . or were . . . owned by Ford. So their wellbeing was tied in with the American auto industry. So if the American industry suffers, it would eventually affect them negatively and looks like it now is.

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