MG Rover, the beleaguered British carmaker, will this week admit to a very disappointing yearl after a massive sales slump led to heavy losses.
Despite the continued failure of the Longbridge-based company to meet its often postponed break-even targets, a handful of its directors are to get a payment of about €5.8 million into a controversial trust fund set up to provide retirement benefits. Last year five directors - including the original "Phoenix Four" led by John Towers who took over the business from BMW in 2000 - benefited from a €18.7 million payment into the fund.
The payments brought accusations that directors were asset-stripping the business, although these were contested by Towers and his colleagues, Peter Beale, Nick Stephenson and John Edwards.
This year's figure is lower because it covers a single year, while the €18.7 million covered the first two-and-a-half years of Phoenix Venture Holdings owning the group.
The 2003 accounts, due out tomorrow, will reveal a loss of about €100.7 million, reflecting an improvement on the 2002 deficit of €137 million and continuing the annual reduction in red ink since 2000.
But, while the company will not make a specific earnings forecast for 2004, it will say that it will not continue this trend in 2004 and that losses will bounce back up again because of a very difficult trading environment.
Rover sales suffered crippling decline in the past two reported months - August and September - falling by more than a third in each month compared with the previous year. The September drop is particularly damaging because it is seen as a crucial month for sales throughout the industry.
Annual sales are expected to be considerably lower than the 144,000 in 2003, itself a drop from the 200,000 sold in the last year of BMW ownership, due largely to the ageing model range.
However, MG Rover will highlight the fact that all car companies are struggling - from those such as General Motors which is planning job cuts in Europe to stem losses, to Jaguar which plans to end car production at its Browns Lane plant in Coventry.
And it will point to its strategic alliance with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation under which a wide new range of models is planned for manufacture at Longbridge and in China.