Britain's Rolls-Royce Motor Cars up for grabs
By Andrew Young
One of the last British automotive icons, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is up for sale.
The company's parent, engineering firm Vickers Plc, placed a For Sale sign on the luxury carmaker Monday, with BMW emerging as the early favorite to buy it.
Industry analysts said the unit could bring around 400 million (US$655 million).
Rolls-Royce, a byword for British style and quality for almost a century, could become the latest in a long line of illustrious British auto manufacturers bought out by foreign companies.
Ownership of the bulk of Britain's motor industry has been handed over to foreign concerns. Jaguar, Aston Martin and Rover are long gone, leaving only quirky specialists such as sports car companies TVR, Morgan and Caterham in British hands.
However, a number of potential bidders were quick to rule themselves out of the auction for the unit, leaving BMW, who bought Rover four years ago, as the early front runner.
Within hours of the announcement of the planned sale, both Germany's Daimler-Benz and U.S. motor giant Ford Motor Co., owner of Jaguar, denied any interest in bidding. Fiat's Italian luxury sports car manufacturer Ferrari later ruled itself out of contention.
BMW, however, made no secret of its interest, repeating its previous view that Rolls-Royce Motors would be a good fit while German rival Volkswagen AG declined to comment on its position.
A Vickers spokeswoman said any sale would probably not be finalized before next spring.
Analysts said the timing of Monday's announcement was a little surprising given the expected launch of a new car early in 1998, which would have maximized the company's value.
Analysts concluded that the company was either under pressure from a line of buyers pressing for a swift decision or Vickers needed a relatively quick disposal.
"We recognized that, although we had put a lot of money into Rolls-Royce, it would go on needing quite a lot of investment that we as a general engineering company, as opposed to a specialist, would need to put elsewhere," Vickers chairman Colin Chandler told Reuters.
Amid the flurry of companies denying interest in bidding, a spokeswoman for Vickers stressed that it had received approaches for Rolls-Royce from more than one company, but declined to name any of them.
"I am a little skeptical that there is a line of buyers," said one sector analyst.
"If there was only one buyer and they knew it then you would be looking at some downside in the stock. If it's a competed situation then we might see some upside."
Analysts said BMW's existing links with Rolls-Royce made it seem a strong candidate.
"BMW seem to be best placed technically in as much as it is their drivetrain in the car and another buyer might have to pay to reengineer the whole range," said Nick Cunningham, an analyst at Salomon Brothers.
He also said BMW was better placed to persuade Rolls-Royce Plc to part with its brand name because of the companies' joint venture on airplane engines.
The departure by Vickers from making cars for the well-heeled reflects the company's strategy of concentrating resources on its core business areas of defense systems, propulsion technology and Cosworth cars, chairman Chandler said.
"We have done all we can (for Rolls-Royce), we saved it, we nursed it back to health, we got it in good shape ... this is the right time to divest," he added.
Vickers, which has brought Rolls-Royce Motor Cars back to profitability, put its medical division up for sale last month and expects to announce the new owner within the next few weeks.