 Stoneacre Motor Group has bought three Ford dealerships from Polar Ford for an undisclosed sum. Transfer over The dealerships, based in York, Scarborough and Thirsk, will transfer over to Stoneacre on the 1 August. Polar Ford is working closely with Stoneacre Motor Group to ensure a smooth handover for all its employees, with consultations taking place throughout July. Staff transfer over under TUPE regulations. Upcoming changes Dealerships will also be writing to customers informing them of the upcoming changes. Polar Ford is part of Ford Retail, which is the largest Ford dealership group in the UK. It will continue to serve the Yorkshire region with dealerships in Bradford, Barnsley, Wakefield, Castleford and Huddersfield. Stoneacre is a privately-owned dealer group ranked 63 in the Motor Trader Top 200 Dealers with a turnover of £163m. It operates 20 franchised dealerships, predominantly along the M62 corridor. It recently acquired a Ford dealership in Goole. DATED: 09.07.09 FEED: MT |
Thursday, July 09, 2009
GM confirms Chinese bid for Opel
General Motors has confirmed a bid from Chinese firm Beijing Automotive Industries (BAIC) for Opel.
Opel, GM's European arm, was separated from its parent firm and temporarily placed with a trust fund before GM entered bankruptcy.
A deal with Canadian car parts firm Magna International to take over Opel has been agreed but not finalised.
Several bidders have shown an interest in buying Opel, including BAIC, but GM has only confirmed the Chinese bid now.
"Its very common if we get bids from other companies during the process" said GM.
It added that the Magna deal was near completion.
Several Chinese firms have been looking to buy western car marques. Rover and MG are already owned by the Nanjing Automobile Corporation (NAC), and Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery is hoping to acquire the Hummer brand.
Closely watched
The Opel deal has been closely watched because of its implication for jobs.
Opel employs a total of 54,500 workers across Europe, with 25,000 based in Germany.
The German government promised the firm 1.5bn euros (£932m), including a bridging loan, to help boost finances until the Magna sale is concluded.
Under the Vauxhall brand, the firm employs 5,500 UK workers and has plants in Luton and Ellesmere Port. There have been worries that UK workers will suffer sharp job losses.
Interest Rate Announcements
Bank of England Maintains Bank Rate at 0.5% and continues with £125 Billion Asset Purchase Programme
DATED: 09.07.09
FEED: BoE
Used car prices rise in June
 Average used car prices continue to grow but at a slower rate than that seen in the first few months of 2009, according to the June Pulse report from auction house BCA. Average prices rose £77 to £5,850 compared to May and are now 14.3 per cent ahead of June 2008 Part exchanges With demand for affordable transport staying high, values have increased in the part-exchange sector for seven consecutive months. The average price improved by £45 to £2,405. Year-on-year values are ahead for the second month running, up £250. June saw another increase in nearly-new values, up £1,690 against May to reach £16,382, the highest recorded in a year. BCA communications director Tony Gannon said: "The current supply and demand equation is keeping prices high. Low stock levels "Stock levels remain relatively low, and certainly behind normal levels for the current period in previous years. "Consumer demand remains firm and with the vast majority of vehicles on offer being sold, conversion rates remain exceptionally high and values reflect this." BCA also reports on the longer-term quarterly movements, and shows that Quarter 2 2009 established a new record average value of £5,785 - beating the previous highest of £5,722 in Q1 of 2008 by £63. Year-on-year, Q2 09 is some £450 ahead of last year. DATED: 09.07.09 FEED: MT |
Stoneacre buys three Polar Ford dealerships
MG Rover bosses accuse Brown of blocking financial aid
The four former directors of MG Rover have accused Gordon Brown of blocking state aid to save the company from collapse four years ago.
John Towers, Nick Stephenson, John Edwards and Peter Beale, who have been criticised for making tens of millions of pounds from the car company before its collapse, have released a 20-page report claiming that Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, wanted to save MG Rover.
However, the men claimed in the dossier that plans to advance a £120 million loan to the company were blocked in April 2005 by Mr Brown, who was then the Chancellor.
As a result, the company collapsed. This week Business Secretary Lord Mandelson confirmed that the Serious Fraud Office was looking the case for a criminal investigation into the collapse of the company.
The dossier compiled by the four men said: "The Government is doing and will do anything to disguise the role played by senior political figures in the closure of MG Rover."
The report also claimed that the Department of Trade and Industry "not only failed to support MG Rover but they poured millions of pounds into rival foreign manufacturers such as Ford, Nissan, BMW, Vauxhall and Peugeot".
However, the allegations that Mr Brown 'pulled the plug' on MG Rover have been flatly denied by the Government.
China car sales continue to soar
Car sales in China rose 48% in June from a year ago, boosted by government incentives and the continuing resilience of the country's economy.
Sales hit 872,900 vehicles last month, the biggest increase since February 2006, said the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
Chinese car sales are continuing to benefit from cuts in sales tax, and subsidies to trade in older vehicles.
It comes as the wider China economy continues to grow at more than 6%.
The most recent official data showed that the economy expanded at an annual rate of 6.1% in the first three months of 2009, a slight slowdown from 6.8% in the final three months of 2008, against the backdrop of the global recession.
'Proud result'
Domestic Chinese car sales overtook those in the US for the first time in December of last year, and this trend has continued.
While 872,900 cars were sold in China in June, 859,847 were bought in the US.
Global carmakers are now increasingly targeting China as a key growth market.
"It was really hard for our auto industry to achieve such a proud result against a backdrop of general gloom in the international auto industry," said the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, which is authorised by the Chinese government to release the data.
US carmaker General Motors recently reported that its sales in China rose 38% in the first half of this year, while Ford's sales in China increased 14% over the same period.
Work to widen M25 is started by Transport Minister
Work to widen key sections of the M25 as part of a £6.2 billion contract to improve and maintain England's busiest motorway - creating thousands of new construction jobs - was officially started yesterday (Wednesday, July 8) by Transport Minister Sadiq Khan.
The work involves widening two sections of the M25 between junctions 16 and 23 - from the M40 to the A1 (M) and junctions 27 and 30 - from the M11 to the Dartford River Crossing.
The Transport Minister witnessed early progress on widening 22 miles of the motorway between junctions 16 and 23 from three lanes to four in both directions.
Mr Khan said: "Today marks a major step forward in our commitment to 'Building Britain's Future' and increasing capacity on the busiest sections of motorways and trunk roads.
"This vital scheme will tackle the nuisance of congestion, improve journey time reliability and safety and help boost the productivity of our businesses. Everyone who uses these important stretches of motorway, whether business or leisure travellers, will benefit from the massive investment.
"It is also a huge boost to the economy - the construction schemes will employ between 3,500 and 4,000 people until 2012 in addition to around 850 people employed on the 30-year operations and maintenance work."
Work to widen the second section - 16 miles of the M25 between the M11 and the Dartford River Crossing - will begin this month. Both sections are due to be completed before the Olympics in 2012.
Up to 200,000 vehicles a day use the sections of the M25 that will be widened. The Highways Agency says that work will be phased to reduce the impact on road users and keep as many lanes open as possible.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
New car registrations fall 15.7% in June
New car registrations fell by 15.7% in June to 176,264 units, but it was the smallest fall in 12 months.
New registrations fell by 25.9% year-to-date.
Paul Everitt, Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders chief executive, said: “We are now beginning to see the positive impact of the scrappage scheme translate into new vehicle registrations.
“SMMT expects the pace of improvement to increase in the coming months, but we can already see the industry making steady progress on the long road to recovery.”
Sue Robinson, director of the RMI national franchised dealers association (NFDA), said: "The true impact of the vehicle scrappage scheme will be felt over the next few months, as the volume of orders made via the scheme are processed and consumers receive their cars.
"It can take up to two months for a new car purchase to go from the initial order to the delivery to the customer, so most of the purchases made under the scrappage scheme have yet to translate into sales. We expect the full impact of the scheme to make itself felt from next month onwards."
Pace of decline slows slightly as first few weeks of scrappage takes effect
- The new car market posted its smallest decline since July 2008, at -15.7%, in June. The scrappage scheme will have a positive impact on volumes, although the impact is likely to be lagged. SMMT had expected the market to decline to 153,000 units (as forecast in April), with the actual being 15% higher at 176,264 units.
- Registrations to private buyers rose for the first time since November 2007 in June, up 3.9%.
- Demand for small cars also picked up, with the mini segment showing growth of 145.4% in the month, while superminis took a record 37.2% share of the market. Ford’s Fiesta was the best selling model for a fifth time this year.
- The growth in small car demand contributed to the fall in diesel penetration, with small cars tending to be petrol powered. However, diesel market share is still up over the year-to-date.
- The market remains down 25.9% or 322,524 units over the first half of the year. Volumes in quarter two were down 21.2%, marking a sixth successive quarterly decline. SMMT is due to review and revise its full year forecast later this month.
- The average new car CO2 emissions fell to 152.3g/km in the first half of 2009, this was 3.6% below the 158.0g/km recorded in full year 2008 and 19.8% below the 1997 level.
Single PPIs stopped
Banks and other lenders have stopped selling single premium payment protection insurance alongside loans in the wake of a damning Competition Commission report.
They were originally to be outlawed from October 2010 but the Financial Services Authority called for an earlier stoppage because of “ongoing concerns”.
DATED: 07.07.09
FEED: AM
Block Exemption: Change a long time coming
It’s a pound to a penny that the overdue changes in Europe’s Block Exemption regulations will not be announced in accordance with the timetable.
And it is a reasonably safe bet that the politicians will defer it just before the summer break, go away on a long holiday and fail to get anything through before the end of the year.
For all UK car dealers, the measures the European Commission finally comes up with will determine how the sector makes money in the next decade. More important still for the owner drivers, the changes could have a bearing on how valuable their business is, and how easy it is to sell.
Consultation period
But as usual, delivery of that information is infernally slow.
Last May, an EC publication assessed how the regulations had been working up to that point. It was largely self-congratulatory; the view was that there was not that much need for change.
A consultation period was due to run to the end of the autumn but that never happened.
Instead, DG-Competition of the European Commission published the submissions on the internet, click here to view the document.
ICDP, the Solihull-based car distribution consultancy, was quick to publish the response that there was little support for the self-satisfaction of the regulators, or for the regulations that seemed likely to arise in the next phase.
ICDP director Andrew Tongue said: “With the exception of carmakers and importer associations and some of the member state governments, there is very little support from the rest of the industry, from national level regulators or from legal opinion for the conclusions drawn in the May 2008 evaluation report.”
Sceptics’ forecast
Then came the announcement that the new regulations would get an airing in March; then it was May. According to the latest gossip, it will be mid-to-late July. Hence the informed forecast from the professional sceptics, that our elected representatives will shuffle the job under the pending tray and make a grab for the beach towel.
The period of time set aside for drafting the framework for the new regulations then gets shot to pieces, and the existing Block Exemption expires in just under a year’s time on May 31, 2010.
DATED: 07.07.09
FEED: AM
MG Rover in fraud investigation
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is to investigate the circumstances surrounding the demise of Birmingham-based carmaker MG Rover in 2005.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said in a statement that the SFO must see if there are "grounds for prosecution".
It follows a four-year inquiry into the collapse, which led to 6,000 job cuts.
The four executives in control of MG Rover at the time said there was "no suggestion of improper conduct", calling an investigation "ridiculous".
Lord Mandelson said: "There has been a comprehensive and thorough investigation into the events which led to the company failing, workers losing their jobs and creditors not getting paid. The SFO must now see if there are grounds for prosecution."
On Sunday, a spokesman for the MG Rover directors had said: "The directors have at all times willingly accounted for their actions, which kept MG Rover alive for five years."
When the MG plant at Longbridge, Birmingham, closed the government announced a £150m support package for those losing their jobs and for the estimated 12,500 people affected in subsidiary firms.
Report delayed
The new investigation comes after the completion of a four-year inquiry under section 432 of the Companies Act by inspectors appointed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Part of that investigation was supposed to find out what had happened to the more than £400m left to Phoenix Ventures when it took over MG Rover from BMW in 2000.
The publication of the report by the business department's inspectors will now be delayed pending a decision on whether there will be criminal prosecutions.
But Professor David Bailey, director of Coventry University Business School, said he did not want to see the report stalled any further.
"I'd like to see that [report] in the public domain because workers, suppliers and communities affected by this do deserve some answers."
He added that while it was right that the SFO was brought in if there was "inappropriate behaviour or the suspicion of it", he was surprised that it had taken four years.
Phoenix Four
MG Rover went into administration under insolvency procedures in April 2005, with debts of more than £1bn. Its assets were sold in 2006 to China's Nanjing Automobile, which revived the MG sports car brand.
A quartet of executives known as the Phoenix Four had taken control of the company in May 2000 after originally buying MG Rover for a nominal £10.
The business came with an interest-free loan of £427m from BMW, the previous owner.
"John Towers, Nick Stephenson, Peter Beale and John Edwards are estimated to have taken out more than £40m in pay and pensions in the years before the business went down," said BBC business editor Robert Peston.
The Commons public accounts committee criticised the government in 2006 for being too distant from Phoenix Ventures and not sufficiently prepared for its demise.
Professor Bailey said that the inspectors' inquiry that has yet to come out should be critical of the government and its industrial policy as well as the company.
'Heart of the matter'
A spokesman for the directors said that "time and again they asked for government help and didn't get it".
"Four years and £16m of taxpayers' money has been swallowed up on this [Department for Business] inquiry and the directors' major concern that it will fail to get to the heart of the matter, which is why the government withdrew its offer of a loan to the company at the eleventh hour, allowing 6,000 workers to lose their jobs," they said.
Their statement added: "Four years on, any suggestion of another further investigation is frankly ridiculous and smacks of kicking this issue into the long grass."
They also said the government had refused more than 30 requests under the Freedom of Information Act which would have revealed correspondence and documents.
They said these would have "shed some light on the government's role in the affair".
NFDA: Scrappage impact in coming months.
'The true impact of the vehicle scrappage scheme will be felt over the next few months, as the volume of orders made via the scheme are processed and consumers receive their cars,' says Sue Robinson, Director of the RMI National Franchised Dealers Association (NFDA), representing the UK's car dealers.
New car sales for June 2009, announced today (Monday 6 July 2009) show that 176,264 new cars were sold in June, 15.7% per cent down on June 2008.* One positive sign is the return of the private buyer to the new car market, particularly encouraged by the scrappage scheme.
According to Robinson, 'It can take up to two months for a new car purchase to go from the initial order to the delivery to the customer, so most of the purchases made under the scrappage scheme have yet to translate into sales. We expect the full impact of the scheme to make itself felt from next month onwards.'
*Sales figures courtesy of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT)
Scrappage scheme helps car orders
The UK's car scrappage scheme has started to have a "positive impact" on the industry as new car sales fell at their slowest rate for almost a year.
New car registrations fell by 15.7% in June compared with the same month last year, smaller than May's 25% drop.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said 176,264 units were sold during the month.
The scrappage scheme, which offers a £2,000 incentive to scrap old cars, accounted for about 10% of sales.
The scheme came into effect on 18 May.
Car buyers are given a £2,000 discount on a new car if they scrap one that is at least 10 years old. Half of the money will be paid by the government and half by the car industry.
The SMMT said 29,796 vehicles had been sold under the scrappage scheme since its start, while government figures show that, up to 21 June, some 87,000 orders had been placed.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills says that at this rate, the scheme would be exhausted by the end of October. It had first forecast that it would last until March.
Professor David Bailey, director of Coventry University Business School, said the pressure would be on the government to extend the scheme into the new year.
But the business department is "adamant" that there are no plans to extend it.
'Steady progress'
"We are beginning to see the positive impact of the scrappage scheme translate into new vehicle registrations," said Paul Everitt, chief executive of the SMMT.
"SMMT expects the pace of improvement to increase in the coming months, but we can already see the industry making steady progress on the long road to recovery."
Although June was the 14th month in a row to see sales of new cars fall, it was the smallest monthly decline since July 2008.
The number of new cars sold in the UK in June was about 15% more than the 153,000 figure predicted by the SMMT in April.
Private buyer registrations were up 3.9% year-on-year, the first rise in this sector since November 2007.
And demand for small cars picked up - with the "mini" segment showing 145.4% growth over the year and "superminis" taking a record 37.2% share of the market.
However, the total number of cars sold in the first six months of the year is still 25.9% down on the first half of 2008.
'Stabilisation'
According to Ian Robertson, BMW's group marketing director, the crisis that has hit the motor industry appears to be over.
"From the first quarter of the year to the second quarter of the year, there was a stabilisation of a negative trend," he said.
BMW has introduced cheaper entry models for both its BMW and Mini brands in order to benefit from the government's scrappage scheme.
"We've seen an improvement in sales," he said, adding that the 1.5 millionth Mini has just rolled off the production line at its factory in Cowley, near Oxford.
However, Mr Robertson said the government had missed an opportunity by its failure to link the scheme to car emissions.
"They could have added a CO2 target, which would have prevented some of the cheap and cheerful cars, which aren't necessarily that environmentally friendly, from qualifying," he said.
'Less snobbery'
Hyundai also reported that UK sales had almost doubled in June from the same month a year ago - which it said was largely due to the scrappage scheme.
UK managing director Tony Whitehorn said that "scrappage customers" were generally buying small cars, that were often their first new vehicle.
"They're looking for a good return on their money, and things like a five-year warranty are important to them as well as having modern vehicles," he said.
"The scrappage customer doesn't tend to have as much brand loyalty or any snobbery. They're coming to it fresh and are doing plenty of research before they decide what to buy."
However, Professor David Bailey, director of Coventry University Business School, said that while the car industry may have bottomed out, it wouldn't properly start to recover until wider confidence and the housing market picks up.
Magna's Demel poised for revenge on Marchionne
Vienna-born Demel was the first non-Italian to head Fiat's car business but was ousted by Marchionne in 2005 when the two men clashed over a restructuring strategy for the crisis-hit Italian automaker.
Despite withdrawing Fiat's bid for Opel at the last minute on May 29, Marchionne would still like to add the German carmaker to his Fiat-Chrysler empire.
Demel is playing a key role in stopping him. On June 25, he was in Detroit with Magna co-CEO Siegfried Wolf ironing out sticking points over Magna's Opel offer with General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson and GM's lead negotiator Jim Smith.
Magna remains the front-runner for Opel even if GM is talking with other bidders.
Insiders say Demel will lead the new Opel with the current management team of GM Europe President Carl-Peter Forster and Opel Managing Director Hans Demant.
Magna has attracted criticism from some quarters because it does not have any experience running a volume carmaker. Building niche cars at its Magna Steyr unit in Austria is not enough, critics say.
Bankruptcy judge ok's sale of GM assets
A U.S. judge on Sunday approved General Motors' bankruptcy sale, in a move that will allow the company's most profitable assets to exit bankruptcy protection under government ownership. ...
