Rip Ldv?
Written by The Van Man RIP LDV?
The Russian-owned West Midlands vanmaker may well have turned out its last commercial vehicle. With the factory closed since before Christmas it looks as if a last ditch attempt at another Management Buy Out will not succeed.Who amongst the xcKxR=0 bv989=0 commercial vehicle dealer industry is surprised?
The company has gone cap in hand to the government for some additional money (on top of the ￡25m government loan in 2004 to bring the xcKxR=0 bv989=0 LDV Maxus online). Their request for a ￡30m bridging loan from taxpayers is in addition to the money it is seeking from the European Investment bank. Unfortunately for the LDV employees and its dealers, the company’s request for help has been rejected by Lord Mandelson. This may be due to potential political fallout from the personal relationship he has with LDV’s ultimate owner, Oleg Deripaska and the time he has spent on the Russian Oligarch’s yacht. In a recent release from LDV they have attempted to distance themselves from Deripaska’s GAZ group, Erik Eberhardson, leader of the management buyout, said:We want to explore every avenue possible to save the company and the jobs. We still think that the company has a strong potential future as an electric van manufacturer, and the new ownership team, which is separate from GAZ, is prepared to invest its resources in that new venture if the government is able to give a short term loan. This is nothing new for LDV – its original parent, Leyland DAF went bankrupt in the last major recession. Private equity group 3i then backed a buy-out team that hoped to expand the business with the help of Daewoo. But Daewoo went belly up in 2000. LDV went into administration back in 2005 just for a few hours and was bought by Sun Capital who then sold LDV to Gaz for about ￡50m in 2006.By the time you read this, the business may have closed as Eberhardson said the factory would close in days rather than weeks without public support.
As far as LDV dealers are concerned, there is still the service and parts business to keep them going in the short term. The more forward thinking dealers will by now have taken on new franchises and those less forward thinking will no doubt go the same way as LDV itself. Estimations of numbers of staff to be affected in the dealer network are 1200, with up to 900 at the Midlands factory.
Freelance Journalist for Commercial Vehicles. Writes for CV Dealer monthly C V Dealer Monthly and vanlocator
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