MG Rover going bust (again)

Lol Horsetan, Roman quotes do highlight the fact that corruption and incompetence has been with us for centuries.

As for BMWZ3's evils of Tory privatisation, you could say similar about Labour Nationalisation........... I don't think any unbiased person can claim any of the current parties are squeaky clean, far from it.

Last I heard the most efficient form of Government is supposed to be a dictatorship, not that I'm recommending one!  I'd go along with an earlier statement,can't remember whose, that anyone who wants to be in power should be prohibited from so being!

Doive wrote: As for the Phoenix executive, he should be made to return from his holiday and explain, in front of all 6000 Longbridge employees, just what exactly he has done to safeguard their jobs and livelihoods. I cannot believe such corruption can go virtually unnoticed.

sorry mr dovie  but i have to disagree..the phoenix guys took a risk in taking on rover ..they used there own money and put there houses up on the line to raise certian funds.. so if you are willing to stick your neck out in life ..then you can take the rewards that go with it too..i think if anyone of us were in there postion we would do the same .

bmwz3 wrote: pma1ums wrote: sorry mr dovie  but i have to disagree..the phoenix guys took a risk in taking on rover ..they used there own money and put there houses up on the line to raise certian funds.. so if you are willing to stick your neck out in life ..then you can take the rewards that go with it too..i think if anyone of us were in there postion we would do the same . The Phoneix gays paid a nominal sum of 10 pounds to BMW, put in only £240000 (putting their house up is a bit of pretence), BMW ploughed in nearly £800m and yet they messed it up. So there was no "risk" involved in any sense of commerce to warrant a £40m payout. They were simply not upto the job of running a company that has to survive in a competitive industry. They lacked  brains. They shouldnt have been allowed to come anywhere within 10mile radius of the company instead should have been sent off to join the dinner ladies in Jamie Olliver's school dinner kitchens !

i would agree with you on the pretence thing about there own money etc etc .

but saying they shouldnt have run the rover group is slightly unfair.because i didnt see anyone else at the time willing to take rover on .[the city were not intrested in the slightest] in fact everybody else turned there back .so ok they wernt the best peaple for the job ..but they was the ONLY ones that put the deal together.

at the end of the day there buisness peaple in a buisness world.and they in it for the money not the love of rover as a group.

a 40 million payout was over the top [slightly] but in view of that fact they still left there repution in the balance to pursue the takeover.i know what the city thinks of there reputation now ..and its a lot better than before they opted to take on rover ...there not at all mavricks in there field .but there one step closer to retirement

pma1ums wrote: i didnt see anyone else at the time willing to take rover on .

What about Alchemy?

The difference was that they (Alchemy) recognized at that point that Rover didn't have an independent future and planned to run the business off this premise - i.e. break it up.  It would certainly have cost jobs, but those that remained in the viable parts of the business would have survived.  For that to have happened would have required significant changes to work practices on tha part of the workers too.

Even with Phoenix, they knew that Rover didn't have an independent future.  They didn't have the resources, even with the dowry from BMW to invest for it.  Rather than pro-actively sell things like Alchemy had planned, their big plan was to wait for a white knight on a horse and try and tough it out until then.  In the meantime they have done alright out of things and the white knight has failed to materialize.

The shock waves for the midland economy are potentially far greater from the outcome in progress than it would have been from an orderly disposal of the assets.  In my opinion, fewer jobs will remain out of all those at Rover and their suppliers as things are shaping up.

Phoenix was the easy option a couple of years ago, when a more pragmatic and tougher decision was needed.  These are the consequences of postponing making the hard decision.  Putting more public money in, even if it were possible under EU and World Trade laws, would again postpone the inevitable rather than prevent it. 

The important thing to establish at this point is what is salvagable.

pma1ums wrote: [alchemy]were never in the running to take it over .somethings tell me the goverment wouldnt have allowed it ..or more to the point would have biased towards the  phoniex deal

Precisely, it was the easy option, politically, but not just for the politicians.