FORD IS due to announce a long-awaited agreement to sell Jaguar and Land Rover to India's Tata Motors today.
The sale is expected to have a price tag of about $2 billion (€1.28 billion) and will include a pledge by Ford to contribute to the two brands' pension funds. Tata, in turn, will continue buying engines from Ford. Both of these were sensitive points with trade unions.
With all major details of the sale already agreed by last week, the announcement of the deal had been awaiting the return to work of Jaguar's employees, who were still on Easter leave yesterday, so that Ford can brief them on it first.
"There will be an announcement on Wednesday, about noon UK time, assuming everything gets signed off," a person close to the deal said this week.
Ford is not commenting on the timing of the announcement, but recently said there were "no major roadblocks" preventing it. Tata said its discussions with Ford were ongoing, but declined to comment.
Media reports yesterday of a $2.65 billion (€1.69billion) deal were wide of the mark, according to sources, however. While Indian news channel NDTV Profit said Tata Motors had signed a deal to buy the Jaguar and Land Rover brands for $2.65 billion, sources say the figure is likely to be significantly less.
In another potential boost to the two brands' future, Fiat's chief executive confirmed that he was interested in working with them if the sale to Tata goes through.
"I think I would be more than pleased to collaborate with Tata in terms of Jaguar/ Range Rover, if in fact it ends up being owned by them," Sergio Marchionne said.