Caterham Cars have been sold check out www.blatchat.com

Press release

http://www.corven.com/downloads/press0105_caterham.pdf

[Edited on 13/1/05 by mjkelly7uk]

Blimey....!!


Must be the competition in that market..........too many replicas/clones

Yeah apparently you can build a similar car yourself for £250!!!

i like the cost effective track racer part !

Presume they'll follow Mr Dyson and manufacture in Malaysia?? That'd be two companies, that went up their a*** years ago, over there - good luck to 'em (the Malaysian people I mean, they'd need it!)

Any chance of some philanthropist buying Robin Hood just to bury them and give Mr Chapman a peaceful night's sleep?

Look at http://www.corven.com/assets.html

" From 1997 to 2000, the Corven team rescued a niche sports car manufacturer from certain bankruptcy and within 18 months led the business to its most profitable year in its 50 year history."



Who was that then?

This is a real shame, I wouldn't be at all suprised if Caterham goes to pot now!

what a bizzare first post...

That'll be Lotus...

quote:

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Originally posted by Mark Allanson
Look at http://www.corven.com/assets.html

" From 1997 to 2000, the Corven team rescued a niche sports car manufacturer from certain bankruptcy and within 18 months led the business to its most profitable year in its 50 year history."



Who was that then?

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http://www.freshminds.co.uk/events/privateequitylecture.htm

I don't understand the workings of big business but anybody who can increase Lotus profits by 95% in one year must know something, even if it's not cars.

yeah , so he increased them from £50K to £150K , perhaps he sold a lot of poo .

my last company was owned by a couple of investment banks.

it got screwed so badly it ended up merging with another.

the banks are in it soley for a rapid return. if that means shipping caterham to delhi or manilla, that will happen. My last company sacked 20 production staff and moved production to checz repulic, where the wages are approx 20% of this country.

atb

steve

Lotus had a couple of really bad years profitability wise, so a 95% increase was not difficult. Not doing quite so well at the moment again, so was probably a great way to get good publicity by massaging the short term figures.

Whatever anyone might think about them, it would be a great loss if Caterham suffers is moved out of the UK or whatever so Corven can make a quick profit. Guess the Nearn family will be pretty stable financially now.

I would have preferred it going to someone with a genuine interest as the guy who bought TVR seems to have, as did the other group who were interested in TVR (led by Sheridan Thyne, ex Williams F1 bloke).

with a turnover of £15 million - it should have sold for £60 million or so - me thinks the family will be fairly secure

60m sounds way too high

when the business i was working for was sold, it was valued on a 'profit multiple' basis, which is common im told. The company is assessed a value as a proportion of profit, not turnover.

It can typically be from low numbers to 20 or so

in the case of where I worked, the company was turning over 24m and making 3.8 profit, at an assessed multiple of 8.5. So, it sold for approx 32 million.


just last year it was sold for 4.06 million.

blazing success.




so, on a like basis, caterham may only be making 2m or so profit a year. 10% is considered good in industry.


atb

steve


[Edited on 14/1/05 by stephen_gusterson]

If they were making £2m profit on £15 turnover in the motor industry I think someone would have bought them a long time ago. A profit level that high would be quite unlikely.

Not sure what TVR turnover was, but if they sold 800 cars at £35k each that gives a turnover of £28m and I think the highest profit they made was about £300k and the business was sold for £15m apparently.

Certainly usually judged more on profit and potential profit rather than turnover. Have to include assets as well, but as a non-production company Caterham would not have had as many as some, so the main asset would be a 40+ year old design with a second, unproven, recent update of the same design!!

quote:

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Greedy smartarses who've never worked a day in their lives. Typical Cateringvan owners. Wouldn't know what grease is.

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