Business

SAIC - MG Rover deal: the Chinese hold all the cards

From the Guardian:

The Chinese company that last week spurned a life-saving deal with insolvent MG Rover has an effective veto over the sale of the company's assets by the administrators.

Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) paid just £67m in the autumn for the intellectual property rights to Rover's Powertrain engine and transmission systems and the firm's flagship R75 saloon/estate and R25 car.

Sources close to SAIC confirmed that should any other company want to buy any of these assets, they could be prevented from exploiting them. This effectively means that for only £67m the corporation has got control of all the assets it wants from Rover, rendering them virtually worthless to anyone else. It could therefore buy them at a price of its choosing and ship them out to China.

A source close to SAIC told The Observer: 'Nobody else can buy it or make it. This applies to Powertrain, the Rover 25 and the Rover 75.' Asked what SAIC's next move would be, the source said: 'We shall see what happens.' He admitted that if the events of the past six months had been a game of cards, the Chinese would have played a near perfect hand.

LINK:
The Guardian: Chinese hold veto on Rover asset sales

 
Danwei Model Workers
laomo2008fpA.jpg
Recommended blogs and new media
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Books on China
Leslie_Chang_Factory_Girls_s.jpg
To die poor is a sin: An excerpt of Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang.
In Wang Shuo's No Man's Land: Geremie Barme addresses Wang Shuo's 千万别把我当人.
Swimming with Mao, a memoir essay: This memoir piece is by Xujun Eberlein, author of the new short story book Apologies Forthcoming'.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Trend-spotting in online fiction (2007.06): An interview with Daniel Dan Fei (丹飞), publisher of Notes on Graverobbing (盗墓笔记), Rear Palace (后宫), and Those Ming Dynasty Things (明朝那些事).
+ Yu Dan: defender of traditional culture, force for harmony (2007.05): Yu Dan (于丹) gets criticized by 'real scholars'. He Dong (何东) writes in her defense, saying that TV program hosts are the ones who ought to be upset. Zhao Yong in Southern Metropolis Daily writes that she upholds the mainstream government line.
+ When corruption investigations were all the rage (2006.12): An essay inspired by the Gao Qinrong (高勤荣) case looks back at the anti-corruption campaigns of the early 1950s. Also, details about the Huang Yifeng Affair (黄逸峰事件) and a review of party regulations encouraging a critical press....in 1950.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky rsschiclet2.png (on the mainland)
or Feedburner rsschiclet.gif (blocked in China)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Main posts: All main page posts
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Top Links: Links from the top bar
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Jobs: Want ads
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30