Ford Looking to Sell Volvo After All?
British business magazine The Business is reporting that Ford is looking to sell Volvo this summer. The magazine states that Ford is looking to sell the Swedish brand for $6 billion – less than the $6.45 billion Ford paid for the brand in 1999.
With Ford in talks with Tata over its Land Rover and Jaguar brands, the sale of Volvo would complete Ford’s dumping of its oversees brands to concentrate on American operations.
The Business reports that potential buyers will be Ripplewood Holdings and Cerebrus. The Swedish brand has as-of-yet to turn a profit under Ford’s ownership.
+ The Business: Full speed ahead as Ford plans summer sale of Volvo (via Autoblog)
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Comments
Throopspeed
Despite Volvo not turning a profit for Ford per se it's platform sharing (Taurus, Mondeo)certainly has helped Fomoco's bottom line. And it certainly would complicate any deal as parts would need to be shared or lines dropped. So while Ford is badly in need of cash I wonder about the wisdom of letting go of such a prolific R&D center especially at a time when Ford is leaning so heavily on it's foreign divisions, Mazda and Volvo for the backbone of it's "new" vehicles. It would be like GM selling Opel, who cares how well Opel is doing when so much GM product is based on it. It's worth it for the ideas....
kennethm3
Maybe instead of dumping Volvo Ford should dump its crappy product line and sell re-badged Volvos here instead. Come on! The 500/Taurus is a turd, the Escort, Fusion, and Edge are dull in comparison to Ford of Europe and Volvo offerings. Beyond the Mustang and trucks, Ford builds nothing of value.
The Stig
Helped their bottom line?? They're still bleeding cash! How does that help? Yeah they share platforms with other Ford products, but as noted above they're still building ho-hum cars. They're mortgaged to the hilt - even their logo and design plans are being used as collateral. With that much at stake, they need to raise every penny they can. If that means dumping Volvo then so be it. Can't Ford engineers build good chassis without Volvo? Goodness knows there are enough cars to reverse engineer to see how it's done if they are that short of engineering expertise.
Ducati Minor
Volvo is a joke. Aside from the C30, there hasn't been a Swedish car on the market worth buying. Even the C30 will tug $27,000 from your hands for a well-equipped model, so I have my doubts there. Volvo has tried to sell safety, and it hasn't worked in the United States. Its products lack spirit in their design, the actual road-tested abilities of these cars leave a lot to be desired, and their pricing is too high for entry-level luxury. There is nothing to generate interest in this marque. No sporty car, no beautiful concept, no desire to achieve anything above average.
dieselhead
I don't think Ford will be focusing on American operations since a large part of their volume is outside the US. They will be focusing on Ford branded product.
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