Nine bids for remains of Longbridge

Jun 23 2005 By Jon Griffin, Business Editor, Evening Mail

ADMINISTRATORS were today examining nine bids for the remnants of Longbridge, as the deadline expired for takeover attempts.

PricewaterhouseCoopers said the firm had had three bids for the whole business, three for MG and three for equipment only.

But the chances of MG Rover being sold as a going concern - and car production resuming at Longbridge - appeared bleak.

Rob Hunt, joint administrator and partner at PWC, said: "We will spend the next few days evaluating the bids.

"I believe the chance of it being sold as a complete business is a slim prospect, but we don't want to close that possibility."

The most serious interest in parts of the Longbridge empire has come from China, with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation - the firm who pulled out of the joint venture - confirming its interest in Powertrain.

Two other Chinese firms, the Nanjing Auto Group and the Geely Auto Group, are said to be in the hunt while other interest in parts of MG Rover has been reported from Iran and Russia.

But if no bids are accepted, PWC would be forced into selling off Longbridge piece by piece.

Jon Bunn, spokesman for PWC, confirmed that nine bids were still on the table for Longbridge but declined to identify the interested parties.

Creditors caught up in the firm's £1.4 billion collapse have already been warned to expect "nil or negligible" payouts, likely to be less than the original estimate of 5p in the pound.

At the creditors' meeting two weeks ago, Tony Lomas, fellow administrator with PWC, said: "We have had 630 interested parties but only nine of those have got over the funding hurdle."