About 18 months ago Renault-Nissan made enquiries about the availability of Jaguar.
Ford rebuffed them. I thought at the time this was an instinctive reaction and given some thought, the answer might have been different. Since then Ford has been thinking long and hard. Probably helped by massive losses and the 10 billion dollar mortgage taken out to fund new product development, it has put Jaguar and Land Rover up for sale.
Jaguar has been nothing but a cash black hole for Ford. I think Ford allowed Jaguar too much freedom and tolerated its losses way to long. Certainly if Renault-Nissan were successful, I can’t see their CEO Carlos “le cost cutter” Ghosn following the same strategy. He would probably move production to the US and share platforms with Nissan’s luxury Infiniti cars. He would make Jaguar profitable within two years. Ford hasn’t managed that in two decades. The same hands-off strategy was followed by BMW with Rover. There is a fear of killing the identity and the ‘x-factor’ if the parent company takes too much interest in the subsidiary. Ford had this fear with Jaguar and BMW had this with Rover, so they allowed them to carry on doing what they were doing –making losses.
Perhaps curiously Renault-Nissan hasn’t been mentioned as potential suitors of Jaguar-Land Rover. It seems private equity companies rather than other car companies are leading the way. They certainly won’t tread softly-softly. They will use a sledgehammer to squeeze costs and increase value before selling on. The cosy life Jaguar-Land Rover have had under Ford is now almost over.
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