has Bahar left Lotus

[ikarl]

mumblings over on PH that Bahar has left Lotus

[neil]

I think it's probably come from the tweet by Tony Fernandes:

So the story is coming full circle. The 2 guys who wasted so much money taking us to court are gone. Chairman and ceo. Could have been so different. But caterham doing good

Which appears to be referring to the Proton Chairman and CEO - http://chiefofficers.net/888333888/cms/ ... hout_lotus

[j2 lot]

Suspect it is speculation as it looks like nothing announced yet, Stolen from Autocar:

.... an announcement over DRB's plans for Group Lotus is expected imminently - with options as diverse as committing to the firm's current five-year plan or selling up being evaluated.

Yesterday http://www.autosport.com revealed that Lotus F1 was ending its sponsorship deal with Group Lotus, prompting speculation that DRB-Hicom was poised to announce its plans for the road car company.

However, a Group Lotus spokesman stressed that the F1 sponsorship deal was not a financial arrangement and that it has no link to Group Lotus's future.

A Group Lotus statement said: "Group Lotus and Lotus F1 Team are brand partners, the F1 team uses the strength of the Lotus name to promote themselves, and in return Group Lotus benefits from F1 exposure and the ambassadorship of its drivers, and the deal is a non-cost one."


Strange news that there was no financial commitmment to Lotus F1 from Lotus cars

[H8OAG]

It is all very sad when there are jobs at stake here................but inevitable!
Any potential bidder carrying out a financial due dilligence on Lotus will come to the same conclusion...........saddled with the current mounting debt, it's not viable.

Latest rumour is that Craig Whyte is tablng a bid............... restructuring the debt with selling the rights of future sales of Lotus handbags to Primark

[ryallm]

Rather worrying for all Lotus enthusiasts. If the new owners pull the plug on Bahar's 5 year plan I fear it really will be curtains for the company. They can't go back to what they have been doing for the last 15 years making the cars we all love as that was just haemorrhaging money.

Mark

[campbell]

Iain, your Craig Whyte story was a cheap shot. But probably closest to the mark

This from Joe Saward's blog...

The Lotus F1 Team has separated itself from the main company and agreed a deal with Group Lotus parent Proton to use the name under licence in F1 for the next five years. This move makes little sense, unless one looks at it as part of a longterm plan by Lotus F1 Team owner Gérard Lopez to take over the car company itself. The challenge in such a deal would be to get the automobile business without having to take on the huge debt that has been racked up by Lotus in the last two years. It is fairly clear now that Group Lotus’s current recovery plan is finished, at least in its current form. There is major due diligence going on at Hethel and the word is that Proton’s new owner DRB Hicom is not happy with the news that is filtering back to Malaysia.

The question that everyone in Norfolk is asking is what this will mean in the future.

The other rumour is that DRB Hicom is negotiating a deal to sell the company to the Chinese car company China Youngman, which has made a habit of using Western brands to sell cars in the Chinese market. Founded in 2001 by the entrepreneur Pang Qingnian, Youngman was built up using the Neoplan and MAN brands to sell buses and trucks. In 2006 it became the Lotus importer in China, before going on to assemble its own Lotus-branded cars, based on Proton running gear, for the Chinese market.

Youngman has been looking for a European brand to buy and has been trying to acquire Saab Automobile AB in recent weeks although that deal has been blocked by General Motors which is refusing to license Saab technology to any purchaser who would be a competitor in China.

There are also rumoured to be talks with Shanghai Automotive and Beijing Automotive – both of which have links to DRB Hicom – but the only deal that is guaranteed to keep Hethel open is the one from GenII. It would also reunite the F1, Lotus Cars and Lotus Engineering businesses for the first time since the days of Colin Chapman. It is fair to say that Proton has other problems to worry about and ultimately does not really care what impact its decisions have on Lotus Cars in Hethel. It will do what is best for Proton and for Malaysia.

The Lotus debts are a problem for all the bidders and the only way for Proton to get rid of these would be to force the situation by declaring Lotus insolvent. A winding-up of the business would allow for the creditors to appoint a liquidator, who would then get as much as possible for the assets of the company. An option would be to go into administration, which would leave the current owners in place but beholden to an adminstrator, while a third choice might be a voluntary insolvency, which would, in effect, be a deal between Lotus and its creditors that would give them a percentage of the money owed.

These days, however, there is much use of a system of pre-packaged voluntary insolvencies, which means that a deal is worked out before the insolvency is declared and is then acted upon instantly, the argument being that such deals raise more money for the creditors than a long drawn out process. The drawback is that the creditors have no say in the deal-making. In such deals the employees of the old company are transferred to the new owner.

The fear is that such a deal might result in the closure of the Lotus factory in Hethel, with only the brand and the company’s technology being taken over by the Chinese. That would also mean that there is no purpose in Lopez running the F1 team as Lotus in the future.

British Prime Minister David Cameron arrived in Tokyo today on a visit to East and South East Asia aimed at encouraging trade deals with the UK. It is expected that one of his ports of call will be Malaysia and so he may be able to have some influence on decisions that are taken regarding Lotus. The government is committed to support British engineering and losing an icon such as Lotus to the Chinese is not something he would want to see. The Malaysian politicians will understand that and will probably be willing to help out to keep Anglo-Malaysian relations in good stead. They ought to be able to influence the thinking at DRB Hicon.

It sounds rough but Lotus Cars have had it rough many times before. Let's wait and see. Perhaps under the right management, performance through light weight can still be the answer. Much of the rest of the car industry now thinks so...

[j2 lot]

Reference to Joe Saward article here too

http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArtic ... rs/262208/

Not looking good

[pete]

Parallels with TVR?

Oh dear. Best wishes to any Lotus employees on here...

[robin]

It's a pipe dream but it would be great to see Lotus being taken over by Tony Fernandez (sp?) - it's not that Tony would necessarily be the best owner for the company, but Caterham are still in the market segment that appeals to most of us - light weight cars with idiosyncratic reliability

[j2 lot]

Although the fact that he has Caterham probably negates the need to buy Lotus too Let hope he feels generous.
The difficulty is obviously the massive debt that anyone buying Lotus faces, unless they go bust and can wipe out the losses .

[tut]

Pity mark Zuckerberg is not a Lotus enthusiast, he could buy the Company with his spare change.

After all, he has just paid £1billion for a photo sharing ap that has never made a penny.

tut

[ryallm]

Wonder how much of that £200 million debt was paid to their Vice President of Creative Design and Global Marketing - yup, Swizz Beatz....

[Lazydonkey]

Wonder if anything happens with Lopez - he's a proper petrolhead with bags of cash.

[Scotty C]

well if Lotus can spunk £400K on doing up he is renting

http://www.edp24.co.uk/home/builder_s_h ... _1_1343332

Lotus can't even raise the money to get the Exige through to production and thats with 600+ orders on the books FFS

[douglasgdmw]

Scotty,

Until the deal goes through I don't think Lotus can do anything with their cashflow.

600 orders for the Exige V6 is great news but I don't think anyone has put down any firm deposits down so their cash flow remains the same. Anyway 600 deposits means very little for a big organisations cash flow unless they were substantial at £2-3k.

George