A letter to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph which was published on 7th February 1994.

The impending sale of Rover to BMW, its chief rival in the executive car market in this country (report, Feb. 1st), is another self-inflicted disaster for British industry and the country.  If the sale – which could still be rejected by BAe shareholders – goes through, it will quickly lead to the extinction of Rover and the closure of all but the Land-Rover plants.

It is altogether typical for this Government, in the form of its “industry” ministers, to hail the offer as “evidence that this country is an attractive location for foreign manufacturers”.  Doubtless the same ministers would have hailed the German conquest of the Channel Islands as evidence of the attractiveness of British holiday towns.

BMW wants only two things: elimination of an increasingly dangerous market rival and acquisition on the cheap of the best four-wheel drive vehicles in the world.

More than anything else this deal exposes the uselessness of the much vaunted over-paid City venture capital expertise.  Here is a going concern, of the utmost importance to our economy, with the world’s most modern technology, in a country awash with unemployed engineering talent.  Yet they could not find £1,700 million to keep the key decisions on its future in British hands.