Here is the pattern: Have a few decent years, then sell for nothing - repeat as necessary. That's Aston's history. When it collapses, hopefully we get another Ford Motor type company that rebuilds the brand correctly and goes more boutique, respecting the dealers and more important, - the customers.

 

Aston has to be taken over by somebody. It simply cannot continue without changes. Its right behind Jaguar with no solutions from ownership. Hopefully an American company will acquire it before it's too late.

 

A take over by another car company would be great, maybe. I think Volkswagen and the cash to buy the company as does Toyota. Volkswagen has good track record with high end car lines. Toyota probably not be a good fit given their history. Not so sure a Lexus engine would be right in an AM. A MB engine is not my idea for AM. But the Lexus engine and a Toyota manual transmission would sure make reliabliity and costs very attractive.

 

I get most of my insights into the luxury car market finances from ssoreport.com. The writer has been pretty much spot on in predictions vs balance sheet truth.
The only luxury car companies making money at the moment are Ferrari, Pagani and Lamborghini. In fact Lamborghini represents a rare bit of black ink in a sea of red for the VAG group.
Everyone else is in trouble, mainly for over extending on electric vehicles.
In any event, apparently the favorite for an AM takeover is a Saudi headed conglomerate. At least the Saudi’s like fast luxury cars so they may continue to make something AM-like.

I know for a fact that the Saudi’s toured every inch of the AM enterprise in the UK. I saw the luxury helicopter land at one of the AM development facilities. They left 45 minutes later for a different location. My bet is they are just waiting for the sale price for the company to drop a bit further.

Philip

 

If a sale goes through, I think it'll be a Chinese auto conglomerate. Their engineering, manufacturing, and market share has been through incredible growth in the past 10 years, and they're ready to scoop up some traditional British marques. Look at Lotus.

 

That would be bad.

 

Geely has been losing a fortune on their purchases. Lotus has been a complete failure. Chinese economy is currently a real mess. As for their cars, they are flooding markets with cheap quality that is more appliance than car and likely with very slim margins.

I don’t see that happening.

I think Saudi money would be the best option. There is already a strong tie in with the F1 team too.

I wouldn’t worry though. Aston will never die. History proves this.

Interesting reading about the US perspective. Perhaps they should only sell cars in the large cities where everything makes much more economic sense. From what I read Minnesota has been run into the ground, full of corruption and will probably be the next Detroit. That’s a bit sad really as it used to be a nice place aside from having to live indoors for six months.

 

Minnesota is NOT being run into the ground!!! Minneapolis (an extremely liberal woke city) is not the somewhat conservative rural Minnesota. My home is in St. Louis Park, my office in Golden Valley - 5 miles. If you drew a straight line between my home and office and put a pin in the middle, it would hit the Morries Aston Martin Dealership! The lord blessed me with an Aston dealer within walking distance of both home and office, the lord took'ith it away. Minnesota in general has a ton of wealth, with a Ferrari dealership, and soon a Lambo dealership. The suburban region is incredible. The city (Minneapolis) has been on a downhill trajectory since before George Floyd, adopting New Urbanism where the car is evil, and intentionally making it difficult to drive and park to promote walking, biking, and public transportation. The 'light rail', the holy grail that was to save the city, people seem to avoid. This social engineering experiment could work (but doesn't) in Portland but not in a state when 20 below zero is a normal day December through February. I friend recently (just last week) bought one of the office towers in Minneapolis that sold before George Floyd for something like $24 million - for $1.00. The tax base is plummeting, police do little, and the nut cases have taken over - but only in a tight geographic area. St Louis Park where I live (adjacent to Minneapolis urban boundary) is a one hour walk to downtown - we are on the edge, but as close to the problems, we have not been affected or aware of any problems other than the news (we do not go downtown or in Minneapolis anymore). Tampon Walz will be replaced, and hopefully with someone sane. The urban core is unlikely to recover, unless the officials change - that's unlikely. What is very concerning that could place the State in a deeper freeze is the new Employment Law. ANY employee can take 20 weeks off at any time for the most mundane and insane reasons with 90% of their pay - every year, as of January 1st. The first week 10,000 applied, now it's exceeding 40,000 and running out of money, funds the State no longer has. As an employer, I have a handful of employees - if I had a larger firm, well, hello Texas! That alone, can destroy Minnesota more than the 10,000 woke protesters in a small geographic area. I think Aston Martin could close down dealerships easily, but as long as they can have local service it won't be an issue. Currently they are STILL forcing dealerships to over stock cars with short floor plan periods, not fair to the dealerships to artificially show sales. They will actually sell far more with local service (not sales), quick parts availability, better warranty response and longer periods, and after sales care. The Minneapolis dealership was hemorrhaging money since Andy Palmer era (and a take over by an investment group that did not understand luxury sales) , and just could not take the loses. I do not blame them for dumping the sales, but I do blame Aston Martin Corporate for pulling the tooling and software away from Factory Trained service - that was a stupid move. The sales staff and management who were great, all jumped ship to Porsche, Ferrari, and Mercedes, leaving inept management and unexperienced sales staff - that also did not help. If Aston gets a boutique service center they will do well in Minnesota (just don't park the car unattended in Minneapolis).

 

Mercedes is the heir apparent to buy Aston Martin. They do not have an exotic brand under their umbrella like the other German marques.

I'd like to see Ford take it over again. They did great things with Aston. Honda is another steward of the brand. It would solidify their new F1 partnership. Would rather see a Honda backed engine than the Mercedes of current.

 

The stock price is border line being de-listed. How much more of bargain could they want? At least Saudi's (and all the GCC) have similar car taste as Americans and cherish what makes Aston special. They wouldn't ruin it, but I don't know if they are best stewards to run the whole show.

 

I agree, Minnesota is not being run into the ground. I think if you look at every state you find at least one area that's not run so well, and likely more than one.

As far as Aston is concerned, they are finally back to having a really good lineup of cars, but they really need to get their corporate act together or its going to all be for nothing. As an Engineer is really ticks me off when management goes out of their way to turn a success into failure.

 

Thanks for the detailed write up. Believe it or not I did work for a company many years ago with HQ in St Paul. I used to really enjoy visiting and the people were awesome. Hopefully sanity prevails somehow. We have our own problems down here with highly “questionable” things our government does. This is not the place for political discussions though. All I will say is that I hope we can make Australia great again. ;-)

I think you have a good point separating the concept of service centres and dealers. Servicing is one of the most important parts of the car buying decision for a premium brand. Where I live in Sydney, the main dealer and service centre is 22km (13.6mi) from where I live. That may not sound like much but that can mean 90 minutes in peak hour traffic when I am used to brands like BMW that are 10 minutes away. There are now some good independents around that even have AMDS but I like the factory stamp. The main dealer has fantastic service and quality of work, so I have accepted the commute. They also have a scheme where they discount the rates for “heritage” Astons which includes the VH models. They hold events there, one of which was in the service centre where you meet the guys that work on your car. They were mainly expats from the UK and they do love the VH models and love working on them and were generally great guys. This sort of stuff works wonders for the brand in my opinion.

Creating regional hubs of excellence in service would be a very smart move indeed. It would not only improve the buying decision on new cars, but also bolster resale values. This is evidenced by Astons keeping their value pretty well in Australia. I think that could work well in the US.

 

Believe it or not, the Chinese have done a great job at creating multiple levels of manufacturing and quality. They can make you something for a $1 and it shows, and they can make you something else for $100 and it shows. Look at the comments from Ford's CEO in regards to Chinese vehicles - he recognizes they've really come a long way when nobody expected it. Just like the Japanese in the '80's, and the Koreans in the '00's, now the '20's is the Chinese' time to shine. It's just the natural cycle of "who's next" and they've put in the effort to get themselves where they want to be.

With the right money and management, they can do just as good of a job or just as bad of a job if they were to buy Aston. Look at Tata, I would say that they've done a good job with Land Rover (and yet somehow dropped the ball by letting Jaguar....well you know).

As for KSA, I believe they are betting their automotive industry and beginning of manufacturing on Lucid. I think they're more interested in making money and re-creating their economy to move away from oil, rather than trying to re-invent a struggling business like Aston. Lucid at least is new technology and a new business model and is in a growth stage. Aston is more around....maintain and figure out how to make your permanent niche in the market.

But none of us really know! It'll be interesting to see how it all pans out.

While this is true, I would think Daimler is more concerned about strengthening their current core businesses, rather than bringing in a failing one. Especially one that is most likely fundamentally different in culture. I'm sure they haven't forgotten about their Daimler-Chrysler endeavor.

But again, none of us truly know

 

Best time for Mercedes to make a move is when Aston's chips are down.

 

Maybe Jaguar should buy them so they have some products again.