Former Ford exec Nick Scheele is joining former Ford CEO Jacques Nasser as potential buyers of the Blue Oval's remaining British marques. Scheele has joined Ripplewood Holdings as an advisor, as Sir Nick has intimate knowledge of Jaguar from his time as leader of the brand in the 90's, and he was in charge of Ford of Europe when Ford purchased Land Rover. Ripplewood partner and former Chrysler President Tom Stallkamp recruited his old pal Scheele to help analyze the potential purchase. By some accounts Jaguar has lost over $10 billion for Ford since since the automaker was purchased in 1989, and a great deal of the financial and product disasters occured when Scheele was steering the ship in Europe. Hey, former Ford Exec Jim Padilla also ran Jaguar once, maybe he's next to get in on the bidding.
[Source: Automotive News - Sub. Req.]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Airhab @ Aug 11th 2007 3:36PM
Interesting.
Tool @ Aug 11th 2007 3:55PM
Nick Scheele has stated that he will only serve in an advisory role and has no desire to run Jaguar/Land Rover if Ripplewood wins.
MK @ Aug 11th 2007 10:51PM
I admit I don't remember many details of this, but these guys really have some kind of "Insider's network". The fact that so much money can be lost under Scheeles' watch, yet he's still considered an asset is amazing.
Rene Curry @ Aug 11th 2007 11:55PM
Jaguar could have succeeded by pulling more parts from the Ford parts bin while having sexy exterior & interior designs. It could have worked, but they were too conservative.
Jaguar cannot succeed on their own. No economies of scale and a strong pound. The only option is to marry with another automaker or Ford needs to re-invent the wheel. I would bet China automakers are in the wings.
If an automaker cannot be hooked up, then I would sell Volvo and fix Jaguar.
big L @ Aug 12th 2007 1:43AM
I agree with Rene. I think TATA or Mahindra should take it over. But Ten billion dollars...
that is a fortune... about half of the Ford family's investment or so. What were they thinking? what was the plan? Maybe Ford should partner up with TATA or Mahindra itself. and deal with Jag later. Like late Senator Dirksen said, "billion dollars here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talking real money."
MiniMe @ Aug 12th 2007 12:01PM
Ford is still suffering the effects of Nasser's boneheaded decisions. Decisions such as dropping the Taurus and Escort nameplates. These had great recognition and good brand images. Dropping them was a tremendous waste of investments Ford made over 20 years for cars that were once the best selling in thier segments and that had good reputations for quality as well.
The worst of the Nasser debacles were the purchase of Jaguar, Range Rover, and Aston Martin. It's almost as if he decided to singlehandedly recreate British Motor Cars (BMC). The billions Nasser spent on these turkeys would have paid for a lot of things for Ford, such as a redesign of the US market Ranger compact pickup which hasn't had a redesign in 20 years and which has lost it's market lead to Toyota's Tacoma.
Ford should bid good riddance to Jaguar and Rover. Let Nasser finish them off as he almost did to Ford.