Aston Martin is planning to go to the stock market within two years to fund its next generation of cars.
Ulrich Bez, chief executive, told The Times neewspaper that the group would have to sell shares to the public to develop new models.
He added that while Aston had been consistently profitable and had been able to fund developments of new cars such as the Rapide and further variants of its DB9 and Vantage models from its own resources, it couldn't afford to develop all-new cars alone.
Aston was acquired in 2007 from Ford by two Kuwaiti investment groups, Investment Dar and Adeem Investment, for £589m. The investment groups are expected to retain a majority shareholding.
Bez also revealed that he is expecting to sell at leat 4000 Cygnets - the Toyota iQ based luxury city car - a year, at a price of around £30,000.
He added that the Lagonda SUV project remains in Aston's long-term plans.
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Re: Aston shares to fund new cars
The current investors are effectivley bankrupt.
Even if you ignore the billions of pounds that ford spent turning jaguar from one of the worlds least reliable marques to one of the worlds most reliable AND the billions of pounds of investment in new technologies, eg engines/ driver aids/alluminium bonding. Then ford still cannot be accused of 'not knowing how to bring jaguar into the 21st century' because they have just done it. Belatedy, yes, but they have done it.
The new xk/xf/new xj were all designed and signed off on in the ford era as were the engines.
Which one can say of any car manufacturer besides jaguar.
These small foreign car companies are a liabiliy.
Re: Aston shares to fund new cars
Unfortunately this shows that the current investors aren't willing to invest in Aston Martin. And while this may raise some funds for the next generation of car, what are they going to sell for the generation after that?
I'm now seriously worried about Aston Martin's future. Under Ford they had access to technologies they couldn't have gained by themselves, now it's clear that as an independent they simply don't have the funds to survive.
I'd have prefered that Ford kept them, but then Ford didn't understand what was required to bring Jaguar in to the 21st Century either! Land Rover keeps making heavier and heavier cars which I never had understood. But why is Ford now selling Volvo? Is there anybody in Ford who knows what they're doing?
Re: Aston shares to fund new cars
If they want funding so that they can build that horrible little baby swan thing. (sorry.. Cygnet) - then please, do everyone a favour and don't invest!