Bidders for Jaguar and Land Rover may not have enough financial information to make binding offers for the two British marques by next week’s deadline, sources close to the talks have said.
It is believed that Ford, the brands’ owner, has not yet passed over some critical information relating to pensions and supply arrangements before next Monday’s deadline for second-round bids.
However, sources close to the American carmaking group say that pensions are not likely to be an issue in the sale and that the supply arrangements are known. Ford executives are still expecting that the sale will be completed by the end of this year or early next year.
Bidders in the running for Jaguar and Land Rover include TPG Capital, which is working with Bob Dover, a former boss of Jaguar and Land Rover; One Equity Partners, which is working with Jacques Nasser, the former Ford chief executive; Ripplewood, which has recruited Sir Nick Scheele, the former president and chief operating officer of Ford; and Tata, the Indian engineering conglomerate that bought Corus, the British steel-maker, this year. Guy Hands and his Terra Firma investment group is also believed to be looking through Ford’s sale details.
Ford formally put Jaguar and Land Rover on the sale block in July, although it had opened informal talks months before that, in an effort to tackle spiralling losses. The sale of the two prestige brands came just months after Ford sold Aston Martin, its other British asset.
Land Rover and Jaguar are part of Ford’s Premier Automotive Group, which also includes Volvo and which until last year was a core part of Ford’s strategy. Ford does not split out profit figures for its various operations, but it is obliged to file some UK financial statements for Jaguar and Land Rover. Last year the two businesses lost about £159 million, down from a loss of £425 million in 2005. However, the Ford group said that those figures represented only the British operations and not the entire businesses.
