Dany Bahar and his team offered 40% of Group Lotus

[Johnsean]

On the weekend the EDGE Malaysia:
This weeks issue #809 of The Edge Malaysia
http://www.theedgemalaysia.com/
Reports that Proton have offered Dany Bahar Group Lotus CEO and his team the management incentive of buying 40% of group lotus.
Sadly the article has not yet appeared online.
Hopefully, the article will appear shortly.

Interesting times for Lotus.

I have a small portion of the article on my blog:
http://motorsportuniversitymalaysia.blogspot.com

[Mark B.]

Hmm . . . so Proton is finally looking to relinquish it's sharingholding. I hope they're not getting cold feet.

[Johnsean]

Proton has sent out a n official statement regarding the sale of Lotus.
June 08, 2010 14:46 PM

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=504287

Proton Says Lotus Not For Sale Now


KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 (Bernama) -- Proton Holdings Bhd reiterated today that its wholly-owned Lotus Group International Ltd is not for sale at this point in time.

The national car maker said Lotus would continue to be a strategic entity within Proton and its technology catalyst.

Proton said this in a filing to Bursa Malaysia in response to a news report of a proposed 40 per cent sale in Lotus' stake to its management team.

Proton have obviously invested a lot into Lotus. It has been a long term investment. Hopefully Lotus goes from strength to to strength.

[WayneB]

I wouldn't be surprised If something happens along these lines in the near future myself.

So far all I have seen from the company since the new CEO took over is alot of costly, kinda hoakey high profile publicity stunts (Evora for Haiti, Indycar Sponsorship, James Bondesque movie in the Alps with the Evora etc.) which seem to be being funded by penny pinching cost cutting measures within the company itself, of staff, departments and projects etc.

My concern is that all this will leave Lotus with in the end is its brand name and little in the way of good product and innovative engineering and design which traditionally is what has powered the company forwards.

I personally see these as quite dark , maybe even desparate times in the companies history and all I can personally hope for at this time is that a benefactor will emerge someday who will cherish and nuture the company with a similar drive and passion as that of its founder.

Has anyone even considered that the new CEO is deliberately driving the value of the company down so as to be able to buy it at some future point in time at a fire sale price?

[mario]

I wouldn't be surprised If something happens along these lines in the near future myself.

So far all I have seen from the company since the new CEO took over is alot of costly, kinda hoakey high profile publicity stunts (Evora for Haiti, Indycar Sponsorship, James Bondesque movie in the Alps with the Evora etc.) which seem to be being funded by penny pinching cost cutting measures within the company itself, of staff, departments and projects etc.

My concern is that all this will leave Lotus with in the end is its brand name and little in the way of good product and innovative engineering and design which traditionally is what has powered the company forwards.

I personally see these as quite dark , maybe even desparate times in the companies history and all I can personally hope for at this time is that a benefactor will emerge someday who will cherish and nuture the company with a similar drive and passion as that of its founder.

Has anyone even considered that the new CEO is deliberately driving the value of the company down so as to be able to buy it at some future point in time at a fire sale price?

I don't think anyone should buy a company that goes down.And is ending the time of single people has big industries.
An industry can survives only with great money of big corporations,actually only chinese can buy Lotus with good future.
In the past Romano Artioli was a great genius.(The Elise and V8 engine in esprit in short time)but is ownership was short....

[WayneB]

Sorry Mario, all Chinese ownership would do is eventually move all of the production of Lotus cars out to China in the end.:crying:

Artioli's tenure was beneficial I agree as far as product goes , but funding the company with money that was the proceeds of crime is not a sound long term financial solution (as was proved).

I think the only people in the world with the cash to buy Lotus and leave it to continue in the UK are located in the middle east, yet again maybe not!

http://business.maktoob.com/20090000443434/Aston_Martin_owner_struggles_with_debt_plan/Article.htm

[Brian Skeoch]

Roger Penske wants to buy an auto maker. first it ws Saturn, then SAAB , so maybe he would consider buying Lotus..?

[WayneB]

It would seem to be a good fit, but I suspect Roger Penske would be looking for an excellent return on his investment, something which Lotus probably couldn't provide him with.:no:

The guy who is running it now has a strong financial background which is fine as far as bean counting goes,but I just dont think he really understands the type of company Lotus really is (a meat and potatoes automobile development and engineering concern) and is pre-occupied trying to artificially glam and sex it up to increase its status in an (vain) attempt to put it on a par with certain German and Itallian sportscar manufacturers..

It's worth and value not only lies with its brand, but with the intelegent and hardworking staff who have made things happen against all odds for the past 20 years, something I tend to think he is forgetting.

I think the Proton people made a major mistake in installing a CEO without a strong automobile engineering background, accountants are never very sucessfull in running automobile companies as history has proved.

[Brian Skeoch]

silly question but last year, how many Elises' were built ? how many Exiges were built and how many Europa's were built ???

anyone know the production numbers for Lotus ?

[WayneB]

I had a thread on here about it about a year ago.

I will see If I can find it.

[WayneB]

Here it is:-

http://www.lotusbuzz.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1377&highlight=Lotus+production+figures

Brian Angus never did disclose the production figures for the Elise/Exige, I guess the company doesn't want to release them yet.

I know they never made alot of Europa S and SE's though .

[mario]

I read in an italian magazine(Auto jun this year) that in Colin chapman days Lotus selled more cars than a Ferrari.......

[Johnsean]

I wouldn't be surprised If something happens along these lines in the near future myself.

So far all I have seen from the company since the new CEO took over is alot of costly, kinda hoakey high profile publicity stunts (Evora for Haiti, Indycar Sponsorship, James Bondesque movie in the Alps with the Evora etc.) which seem to be being funded by penny pinching cost cutting measures within the company itself, of staff, departments and projects etc.

My concern is that all this will leave Lotus with in the end is its brand name and little in the way of good product and innovative engineering and design which traditionally is what has powered the company forwards.

I personally see these as quite dark , maybe even desparate times in the companies history and all I can personally hope for at this time is that a benefactor will emerge someday who will cherish and nuture the company with a similar drive and passion as that of its founder.

Has anyone even considered that the new CEO is deliberately driving the value of the company down so as to be able to buy it at some future point in time at a fire sale price?

The original story from the EDGE Malaysia is still not available online. So here is a portion of the article that talks about the Lotus financials..
Lotus has been loss-making over the last 10 years. According to the company's financial data, obtained from the UK companies registrar, it reported a loss of 13.23 pounds sterling (RM63.5 million) for it's fiscal year ended March 31, 2009.
It had a net profit of 2.25 million the year before, but that was due to papaer gains from from foreign currency transaction. The accounts further reflect debts amounting to 125 million pounds sterling with the bulk of that , that is 96.01 million pounds sterling , due as at March 31 of this year. Accounts for FY 2010 were not available press time.

So it is the Lotus financials that are a concern. General Motors sold Lotus as loss making concern. I am not sure how much Artioli really paid for the company. Over the years they have obviously been a drain on their Proton.

It's a shame that a unique marque, such as Lotus cannot over a prolonged period balance its books.

[WayneB]

Lotus are pretty much Protons R+D dept so thats pretty much where the main benefit to them is of owning the company.

IMO the new managements main aim is to raise the companys profile high enough so alot more money can be made from licensing the company branding and logo's which is something that has contributed a vast amount of money to Ferrari over the years.

My feeling is that it is a pretty much futile task, Lotus is still a small outfit with a small customer base, I just cant envisage them growing to even half Ferrari's size in the next 10 years.

Ferrari has a whole country's population's support and enormous fan base outside of Italy as well, Lotus has never benefitted from such a huge religious type of following (the tifosi) even in the hey days of the JPS era in 1978.

Aston-Martin over the last 10 odd years have been radically re-organised and re-structured having a huge amount of money poured into a totally new factory by Ford to mass produce a mostly cheaper product line and they are still loosing money, and I feel Lotus would be in a similar state If they had been in a position to do the same.

If vehicle manufacturing at Lotus is always destined to loose money, I feel they would be better off making fewer more desirable custom ordered but expensive cars (Esprit type) than churning out the more affordable stuff (Elise)that still looses the company money anyways.