Rover Group

The Rover Group Limited
IndustryAutomobiles
PredecessorBritish Leyland
Founded1986; 38 years ago (1986)
DefunctMay 2000; 24 years ago (2000-05)
FateSplit, MG and Rover sold to Phoenix Venture Holdings for a nominal £10 to create MG Rover Group, Land Rover sold to Ford for £1.8 billion, Mini retained by BMW.
Successors
HeadquartersLongbridge, Birmingham, England, UK
Key people
Graham Day (CEO, Chairman)
Kevin Morley (Director)
John Towers (Rover Group Executive)
ProductsMotor vehicles
Brands
Parent
Subsidiaries

The Rover Group plc was the British vehicle manufacturing conglomerate known as "BL plc" until 1986 (formerly British Leyland), which had been a state-owned company since 1975.[2] It initially included the Austin Rover Group car business (comprising the Austin, Rover, Mini and MG marques), Land Rover Group, Freight Rover vans and Leyland Trucks. The Rover Group also owned the dormant trademarks from the many companies that had merged into British Leyland and its predecessors such as Triumph, Morris, Wolseley, Riley and Alvis.

The Rover Group was owned by British Aerospace (BAe) from 1988 to 1994. In 1994, BAe sold the remaining car business of Rover Group plc to the German company BMW. The group was then broken up in 2000, when Ford acquired the Land Rover division, with the Rover and MG marques continuing with the much smaller MG Rover Group until 2005. Ownership of the original Rover Group marques is currently split between BMW (Germany), SAIC (China), and Tata Motors (India), the latter owning the Rover marque itself with its subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover owning much of the assets of the historic Rover company.

  1. ^ "Companies house". Companies House. 28 February 2023. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  2. ^ Hansard: "Rover Group (Privatisation)" debate, 29 Mar 1988