Secondary sponsor MG Rover has officially gone under. It was very wise
for their only talented rider, Tour de l'Avenir winner Sylvain Calzati,
to jump to AG2R in the off-season...
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MG Rover to Fire Workers as Takeover Talks Collapse (Update6)
April 15 (Bloomberg) -- MG Rover Group Ltd., the British maker of MG
sports cars, plans to fire about 5,000 workers after Shanghai Automotive
Industry Corp. scrapped takeover talks and left the insolvent company
near collapse.
Closely held MG Rover, which employs 6,100 workers at its Longbridge
factory, is losing 25 million pounds ($47 million) a month. It ran out
of options for further funding, said the company's administrator,
PricewaterhouseCoopers, in a statement.
The end of MG Rover, which dates back 100 years, may affect a further
25,000 manufacturing jobs at parts suppliers and be a setback for Prime
Minister Tony Blair, who's seeking re-election May 5. Blair's government
loaned MG Rover 6.5 million pounds to pay workers' wages this week after
the company halted production.
``This is devastating news for the workers, their families and the wider
community,'' said Patricia Hewitt, secretary of state for trade and
industry, in an e-mailed statement.
The government will offer a package of aid for workers, she said. The
aid may be worth 150 million pounds, Sky News reported, citing
unidentified sources.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown will delay a U.S. trip to visit
Rover workers in Birmingham, England today. Blair will be campaigning
today in the West Midlands region, where the Longbridge factory is located.
At its peak in the 1960s, the carmaker employed 250,000 and Longbridge
was one of the biggest car factories in the world. The company produced
40 percent of the cars bought in the U.K., including Triumph, Austin,
Land Rover and Morris brands. MG Rover has less than 3 percent of the
U.K. market today.