The Ford Motor Co. earlier sold the Aston Martin, its British luxury sports car unit, to a group of private investors. Sources familiar to the deal said the consideration is about $ 925 million.
People familiar to the deal said the purchaser is led by David Richards, an auto racing entrepreneur and also the founder of Prodrive Ltd. The latter also runs the Aston Martin racing program. The sources added that Richards will be supported by Kuwait's Investment Dar Co.
Ford sold the Aston Martin brand to raise money to defray restructuring expenses. But it will retain a small stake in the brand. When asked about the sale, a Ford spokesman declined to comment last Sunday.
The automaker bought the majority stake in Aston Martin in 1987. The rest of the stake is purchased in 1994. Last year, Ford posted the biggest annual loss in its 103-year history amounting to $ 12.7 billion. In view thereof, the automaker closed factories and slashed tens of thousands of jobs as part of the restructure plan.
But the strategies are deemed wanting hence the automaker considered other options available and one of it is selling the Aston Martin brand. "It will give them some more needed capital to fund their restructuring," auto analyst Brad Rubin of BNP Paribas said last Sunday of the Aston Martin sale, "but it really isn't that much money."
The Aston Martin is made equally-famous as agent 007, aka James Bond, has featured and used the brand's vehicles in some of his movies. The brand is part of Ford's Premier Automotive Group which also covers Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo Cars. These brands are famous for the luxury, performance and safety. Jaguar, to boost its design philosophy introduced new lineup to wipe away the boxy image of the automaker. Land Rover, on the other hand, is enhancing its off-road performance. Volvo has achieved an ideal standard in auto safety. Even a simple auto part like the Volvo distributor cap is designed with topmost safety offering in mind.
Among the Premier Automotive Group units, the greatest contributor of losses is Jaguar with $ 327 million recorded sales decline in 2006. The automaker does not usually divulge any financial information regarding the individual units of the Premier Automotive Group nonetheless the company said Aston Martin is quite profitable .
Aston Martin, headquartered in Gaydon, England, produces about 5,000 cars annually. Each car costs more than $ 100,000. Considering the standards set by Ford, Aston Martin is not sharing its engineering and auto parts with the rest of Ford brands. Even when the automaker endeavors to make its operations global, the company is preserving the philosophy and standards of Aston Martin.
According to an executive presentation, analysts in the industry said they would prefer that Ford sell the Jaguar brand, which lost more than $ 700 million last year. The report also predicted that the brand would lose $ 550 million this year and $ 300 million in 2008.