MUNICH, Germany — German luxury automaker BMW AG will hand over an engine and gearbox factory and pay $93 million to British consortium Phoenix to end a yearlong spat that has clouded its sale of the struggling Rover car business, a BMW spokesman said Saturday.
Munich-based BMW agreed to sell Rover and the main Longbridge assembly plant in Birmingham, England, to the consortium for a token $14 last May, giving up on the brand after investing some $4 billion in a failed six-year attempt to restore it to profitability. But differences over the value of the assets had dragged on.
BMW spokesman Pelk von Bestenbostel declined to put a value on the engine and gearbox factory, which is to be transferred to Phoenix at the end of the month. Located also at Longbridge, it employs 1,800 people.
He said BMW has already taken provisions that covered the additional costs.
“With these two elements, the whole business has been taken care of for both sides,” he said.
He said BMW is still in negotiations with several possible buyers for its profitable metal-pressing plant in Swindon.
The combined value of the Longbridge engine works and the Swindon plant has been estimated at about $450 million.
Less than a month after dumping Rover, BMW scaled back its presence in Britain further when it sold its Land Rover unit to Ford Motor Co.
Selling the Swindon works would leave BMW with just its Oxford factory, which produces the Mini compact, and a newly completed engine plant not far from Longbridge for its flagship BMW sedans.
