Geely purchases London taxi maker Manganese Bronze for £11m

Mainland carmaker Zhejiang Geely is to buy out the assets and goodwill of the debt-laden manufacturer of London taxis, Manganese Bronze for £11.04 million.

As Geely will take over the servicing of all the taxi maker's existing vehicles, it will have to shoulder the repair costs of the 400 Manganese Bronze taxis that were recalled in October because of a fault in their steering boxes.

While the last valuation of the century-old British company was understood to be just £2.7 million when it was taken into administration by PricewaterhouseCoopers in October, Geely's spokesman, Victor Young, said Geely was Manganese Bronze's biggest single creditor and the acquisition price factored in all the costs the taxi maker owed it.

Geely, which already owned 20 per cent of the cab maker before the buyout, said in a statement yesterday that it would continue to manufacture the TX4, Manganese Bronze's current taxi model, at its plant in Coventry in the West Midlands.

However, Young said, the company would also seek to develop new models in the light of rising competition from Mercedes-Benz and Nissan.

Geely said it would redeploy Manganese Bronze's 300-strong workforce as much as possible.