LDV

LDV, or Leyland DAF Vans, was founded in 1993 by the GAZ group based out of Russia. It was formed out of a buy out in 1993 with DAF NV going bankrupt, followed by other problems that caused other name changed. Before 1987 they were a part of Freight Rover, which was a part of Land rover; however that is when it had a merger into DAF trucks and Leyland Trucks. Two years ago LDV was bought by a group of fiscal backers called Sun Capital, and thus it was put into restructuring mode with many things modified and changed in order to save and make more money and have more use of its resources put into investments in better vehicles and such to increase profitability.

The end result of their plan was to get production up to 1000 vans per month and by doing that getting them above the break even point – leaving it to the buyers to help meet them mid way. You can’t make a thousand vans a month and break even unless you sell 1000 vans a month. Following this they were ready for more efficient changes, but, a year later things had changed.

In 2006 the Russian GAZ organization decided to set in motion the process for buying LDV, and within a few months it was theirs. They then went about establishing a new company called the GAZ International, and they based in within the United Kingdom rather than move it all to Russia. From there they focused on their automobile manufacturing and improvements to the existing van manufacturing.

They also acquired the services of a very well known executive that had been a part of the Ford Europe company, Martin Leach, and then to further bolster their personnel trust they gained Steve Young to run the corporations operations. They now plan to add new production vehicles to their lineups and to enter new markets further away than Europe with the possibility of reaching Asia by 2010 and the U.S. Market by then as well.