The government will underwrite a £1.5bn loan guarantee to Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) in a bid to support its suppliers as a cyber-attack continues to halt production at the car maker. Business Secretary Peter Kyle said the loan, from a commercial bank, would protect jobs in the West Midlands, Merseyside and across the UK.The manufacturer has been forced to suspend production for weeks after being targeted by hackers at the end of August. There have been growing concerns some suppliers, mostly small businesses, could go bust due to the prolonged shutdown.About 30,000 people are directly employed at the company’s UK plants with about 100,000 working for firms in the supply chain. Some of these firms supply parts exclusively to JLR, while others sell components to other carmakers as well.It is believed to be the first time that a company has received government help as a result of a cyber-attack.It is hoped the loan will give suppliers some certainty as the shutdown continues, with production not expected to resume at JLR’s UK facilities until 1 October at the earliest. The government will underwrite the loan through the Export Development Guarantee (EDG), a financial support mechanism aimed at helping UK companies who sell overseas.The loan will be paid back by JLR over five years, in an effort to boost the firm’s cash reserves as it makes a “backlog of payments” to its suppliers.No cars have been built this month, and the company has stopped placing orders with its 700 suppliers. A parliamentary committee said some small suppliers had told them …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnThe government will underwrite a £1.5bn loan guarantee to Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) in a bid to support its suppliers as a cyber-attack continues to halt production at the car maker. Business Secretary Peter Kyle said the loan, from a commercial bank, would protect jobs in the West Midlands, Merseyside and across the UK.The manufacturer has been forced to suspend production for weeks after being targeted by hackers at the end of August. There have been growing concerns some suppliers, mostly small businesses, could go bust due to the prolonged shutdown.About 30,000 people are directly employed at the company’s UK plants with about 100,000 working for firms in the supply chain. Some of these firms supply parts exclusively to JLR, while others sell components to other carmakers as well.It is believed to be the first time that a company has received government help as a result of a cyber-attack.It is hoped the loan will give suppliers some certainty as the shutdown continues, with production not expected to resume at JLR’s UK facilities until 1 October at the earliest. The government will underwrite the loan through the Export Development Guarantee (EDG), a financial support mechanism aimed at helping UK companies who sell overseas.The loan will be paid back by JLR over five years, in an effort to boost the firm’s cash reserves as it makes a “backlog of payments” to its suppliers.No cars have been built this month, and the company has stopped placing orders with its 700 suppliers. A parliamentary committee said some small suppliers had told them …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
