Press Statement From Project Kimber

Project Kimber - headed by David James CBE, the company doctor, in conjunction with the automotive consultancy, de Montfort of Solihull, Warwickshire, controlled by Barrie Wills, formerly of Jaguar, Reliant-Scimitar and DeLorean - wishes to clarify that it has received no direct approach from Professor Krish Bhaskar of the 'Triple A' consortium in France, nor is it interested in any form of collaboration.

The Kimber team is now pursuing its 'Plan B'. This incorporates those elements of its fully-funded business plan for the acquisition of the assets of MG Rover Group Limited and Powertrain Limited in administration, which are unique and neither involve any MG Rover or Powertrain products nor the use of the Longbridge production site.

Barrie Wills of Kimber, who stressed that his management team, comprising former Lotus, Land Rover, Jaguar, McLaren Mercedes and Rolls-Royce managers remains intact, advised: 'We are now in detailed discussions with representatives of two alternative production sites in separate regions of UK, and of one within an Eastern European member state of the European Union. Each of the three sites offers attractive, albeit different benefits. The representatives are keen to assist our plan to assemble specialist sports cars and contract build niche vehicles for third party car manufacturers in the style of Valmet of Finland and Magna Steyr of Austria, recognising that - whilst there is overcapacity in volume car manufacture across the European Union, there is a severe shortage of niche vehicle production capacity and management skills.'

At the same time, Wills makes it clear that, having stepped back from the Longbridge opportunity following the deal between PricewaterhouseCoopers and Nanjing Auto, he remains available should the joint administrators or other interested parties decide that contact with him and his team could be of mutual benefit.