South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co. has recently expressed its non interest in purchasing any of the Ford Premium brands namely, Jaguar, Land Rover, or Volvo since its focusing on completing its overseas investments.
According to Hyundai Motor spokesman, "As we are putting a top priority on ongoing overseas investments, we have no room for new investments at the moment." The automaker has also added its Czech plant and its Kia Motors’ plants in the US are already underway.
Hyundai Automotive Group also including Kia Motors is working to become the world’s fifth-largest automaker hopefully by 2010 through the production of 3 million vehicles locally plus the addition of 3 million units to be produced at its overseas plants in China, Turkey, US, India, Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
The Tata Motors Ltd in India has also refrained from commenting on current circulating reports stating that Indian automaker is already evaluating a bid for Ford’s Jaguar and Land Rover divisions.
Last Wednesday, The Daily Telegraph newspaper of UK has reported on its web site that the Indian company was considering a $1.5 billion bid for the two divisions of Ford namely Jaguar and Land Rover.
And allegedly Tata Motors and Ford have signed a confidential agreement that is according to an unnamed source familiar with the agreement.
Ford has also started to hire advisors last month to help the automaker in finding a buyer that will offer as much as $8 billion for the two premium brands. The Volvo brand, the producer of high quality
Volvo parts, and the more profitable of the three for sale Ford brands is also estimated to have a value as high as $8 billion however since Ford still refuses to officially proclaim the selling of its Volvo brand it’s not yet clear on how much the Swedish brand will cost.
Ford has still not made any statement on the status of their Volvo brand but according to reports the company’s board is open to attractive offers.
Mark Fields, Ford President of the Americas has told the Free Press, "Volvo is pretty integrated into Ford right now." It should be noted that Fields has previously led Ford’s Premier Automotive Group in which Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo are included before he was assigned to head Ford’s North American turnaround plan.
And when asked about his views on the upcoming sale of the brands which he previously cared for, all he said was, "at the end of the day, you have to do what is right for the business.
