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US-based Ford Motor announced yesterday that it would acquire the Rover brand from German premium carmaker BMW AG.

 

"We have informed BMW of our desire to exercise the right to acquire the Rover trademark," Ford said in a statement.

 

“It is in the interests of our Land Rover business to own the Rover trademark," the statement said.

 

Both Land Rover and Rover were brand names of the collapsed British carmaker Rover Group.

 

BMW bought out Rover Group in 1994 and broke it up in 2000, selling Land Rover to Ford and transferring the Rover and MG car business to a British venture capitalist who organized the two as MG Rover Group.

 

BMW transferred the MG trademark to MG Rover, but retains the Rover trademark.

 

When Ford bought Land Rover from BMW in 2000, it acquired the first right to the Rover brand name as agreed by both parties.

 

The Nanjing Automotive Group Corp in Jiangsu Province took over MG Rover last year, acquiring its plant and equipment, as well as the MG trademark and MG vehicle technology.

 

"We bought the Rover brand to protect the coherence of the Rover series," said Ford Motor China spokeswoman Laura Liu, but she declined to disclose the purchasing price and other details.

 

Ford's announcement scotched rumors that Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC), one of China's leading carmakers, would eventually add the Rover brand to its portfolio.

 

SAIC was last month reportedly going to invest US$21 million to acquire the Rover trademark as the brand name of its own sedans, a deal that BMW had approved.

 

But SAIC had to wait for Ford's final decision, as the latter had the first right to buy the trademark.

 

"SAIC's failure to buy the Rover brand will affect its overseas market," Wang Zhihui, an auto analyst at Shenyin Wanguo Securities, told China Daily.

 

But he said the impact would not be very noticeable, as "the company has yet to enter the overseas market."

 

SAIC still owns the design rights to two Rover models, the 75 and 25, which were bought last year from the bankrupt MG Rover.

 

The Shanghai-based carmaker is producing its own brand sedans with Rover technology.

 

SAIC Chairman Hu Maoyuan was quoted by China Business News yesterday as saying that its sedans with Rover technology would roll off the production line at the end of the year and go on sale in early 2007 at competitive prices.

 

The medium-end cars, the first models with SAIC's proprietary brands, will be produced by the SAIC Motor Manufacturing Co. The new models, based on the Rover 75 design, were adapted to suit the requirements of the Chinese market.

 

(China Daily September 20, 2006)