The Business in the UK is speculating that,
despite comments to the contrary, Ford is planning to auction off Volvo as soon as its deal to unload Jaguar and Land Rover to Indian automaker Tata is done. The summer sales event that would see the last of Ford's Premiere Auto Group sold off is expected to fetch Ford around $6 billion, which is just a smidge less than the $6.45 billion the automaker paid for the Swedish brand back in 1999. Unfortunately, despite a much improved product line-up, Volvo hasn't made a cent of profit under Ford's stewardship.
We're a bit leary of this claim that Volvo is headed for the auction block so soon, as Ford has intertwined its own platforms with those of Volvo to such an extent that selling off the automaker would involve extremely complicated deals to ensure that products planned for the near future that happen to share components are not interrupted. So far, only this one media outlet is reporting the story, with no other news organizations having stepped forward to corroborate its claims.
Thanks for the tip, David!
[Source: The Business]
