Investment or bail out?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7789055.stm

I'm not against the government bailing out employers if it keeps
people working but I would like to know if any money put into Ford is
buying me (Mr Taxpayer) a share of the business or is it just being
used to keep Tata investors happy?

I'm also a bit confused by the idea that Tata purchased the company in
June and didn't know that the World was entering a recession so sales
might drop off on high end cars.

 

I have to admit that if I was looking to prop up bits of the UK
manufacturing industry, my first thought would not be a luxury car
manufacturer owned by an overseas investor.

That said, I wonder how the market for high end stuff is actually
holding up compared to budget stuff?

 

What doesn't make sense, to me, is that the government has hiked VED on
'gas guzzlers', killing the market for them stone dead, but is now
thinking of throwing money at the manufacturer to keep making them?

 

I can't find a link but I heard[1] that Ferrari enjoyed a record year in
terms of numbers of cars built and profit this year.

[1] World Service in the wee small hours.

 

I'd love to think that, as an employer, I could pick up the phone to
the treasury at any time and say "Hey, I've made some piss poor
business decisions, had some bad luck, squandered all the money and
have generally fucked up my business. Any chance you could bail me out?"

It's not high end cars so much as cars people don't want. The American
car industry hasn't been listening for a long time and is now paying
the price.

 

Found something...

2008 Q3 report <https://rp1.tss.db.com/dbdr/publication/
PressRel/465_OCT23200844136AM.pdf> p 11.

"Ferrari recorded €450 million in revenues for Q3 2008, up 22.3% year-
over-year, driven

primarily by sales of the 430 Scuderia and 599 GTB Fiorano, improved
pricing and higher

Q3 2008
revenues from the racing division. During the same period, 1,399 cars
were delivered to
the sales network and sales to the end customer reached 1,520 units,
substantially in line
with the third quarter of the previous year."

 

Unfortunately, it didn't last long...

This month, they've laid off 10% of their staff after selling 92 cars
worldwide in November...

http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/10122008/36/ferrari-red-0.html

Aston have laid a third off, Bentley are closing for a chunk extra over
Xmas then losing a shift...

 

Blimey. Bad World Service.

 

"BBC in lazy journalism shocker. News at 11."

 

If we are to invest then it must come with strings attached such as they must
use uk sourced components , the government (aka us) retain the rights to the
design and production and the debt is secured upon the plant equipment and sites

 

More like recycled press releases at 11

 

Tata an Indian business it makes me wonder why the indian government are not
offering it funding or do they know something we dont

 

This wouldn't be hugely surprising. How many millionaires and senior
executives have lost jobs or seen their salaries slashed recently?

 

All you need to do is invest in something employing a large number of
people in an area that's traditionally had a lot of Labour voters and
you're on the gravy train.

 

I doubt if any cash injection will be looked on as investment.

 

governments in gerrymandering non shocker

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Tata had sucked their teeth, grumbled a bit about
the worldwide recession, and mentioned something about keeping design
offices in the UK but moving all production to India. At which point, the
government will have phoned them up to see if there was anything that could
be done.

 

Employ 15,000 to 20,000 people, with many more jobs down the supply
chain, and you probably can!

 

May be it should be then may be , just may be uk plc might once again make a
profit

 

Longbridge workers May disagree