Bankrupt British carmaker MG Rover, which last week axed 5 000 jobs at its central England car factory, more than doubled its financial losses during 2004, The Times newspaper said on Wednesday, quoting administration sources.
Losses at the country’s last high-volume automaker, whose collapse was prompted by a failed tie-up with a Chinese partner, rocketed by about 170% to £250-million in 2004, from £92,6-million the previous year.
That related to the group’s car-making and engine divisions, the daily said.
Administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was tasked with running the century-old automaker since it began bankruptcy procedures two weeks ago, amid an aborted joint venture deal with Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corporation.
The accounts were revealed to 40 potential bidders who have expressed an interest in buying MG Rover’s assets at its Birmingham-based Longbridge car plant, The Times quoted PwC sources as saying.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government opened an official investigation into the collapse of MG Rover at the weekend as calls mounted for the automaker’s owners to share their multimillion-dollar pay and pensions package with laid-off workers.
Ahead of a general election on May 5, Blair pledged on Tuesday that his Labour government will ”stick by” the 5 000 out of 6 100 workers at the Longbridge plant who received written confirmation this week that they are being made redundant.
”We will help with seeking new jobs, with retraining, with redundancy, with protecting their pension — everything we can do we will do,” Blair told a Birmingham radio station on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, MG Rover’s component suppliers are beginning to cut staff in increasing numbers, manufacturing officials said.
The Engineering Employers’ Federation said that a number of firms are being forced to announce ”fairly sizeable” redundancies after Rover went into administration. — Sapa-AFP