History
LDV was formed in 1993 as Leyland DAF Vans Limited following a management buy-out of DAF NV's Leyland DAF van manufacturing division, following the bankruptcy of the Dutch company. Later the name was officially changed to LDV Limited.
Prior to its merger with Leyland Trucks and DAF Trucks in 1987 it was part of the British Leyland / Austin Rover Group empire and was latterly the Freight Rover arm of the Land Rover Group division.
In December 2005, after going into administration, LDV was bought by group Sun Capital/Sun European Partners and was subject to a financial restructuring. What Van reported LDV's commitment to its existing customers, including an assurance from their marketing director that their production target of 1000 vans per month would put them well above break-even point.
The Russian GAZ Group acquired LDV on 31 July 2006, and also established a new company, GAZ International, based in the UK, to focus on the automotive industry. The BBC reported that a GAZ spokesperson said that the company had appointed former Ford of Europe executive Martin Leach and former A.T. Kearney executive Steve Young to run the business, and that it planned to expand production at LDV's Birmingham plant by adding new product lines and entering new markets in Europe and elsewhere. GAZ had plans to export LDV technology to Russia, and start producing the Maxus at the GAZ Nizhny Novgorod plant in Russia with 50,000 as an initial volume. (http://www.autoindustry.co.uk/news/05-11-07_4) There were also proposals to export the GAS Maxus to Australia, a traditional market for British Leyland.
However, GAZ's plans never really showed any increased output, and due to the severe worldwide recession and a lack of long term investment and commitment, production was halted at LDV's Birmingham factory in December 2008.
After the UK Government tried once again to save the company by agreeing to pour in £5million of grants to enable Malaysia's WestStar Corporation to purchase LDV, WestStar failed to secure financing.
The assets of the company were sold by administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers to China Venture's firm Eco Concept, on 15 October 2009.
Read more about this topic: LDV Group
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