Array

FRANKFURT, Apr 11 (Reuters) German premium carmaker BMW is holding talks with many potential buyers of the Rover brand name -- including two Chinese auto manufacturers -- but has not concluded any deal yet, it said on Tuesday.

China's SAIC Motor Corp and Nanjing Auto are both interested in getting the rights to the Rover name that reverted to BMW with the insolvency of British carmaker MG Rover a year ago.

''We are still in discussions with several parties, two of them being SAIC and Nanjing, but no agreement has been reached,'' a BMW spokesman said. He could not say when a deal was expected.

SAIC said this week it would spend another $1.25 billion to fuel its ambition of selling its as yet unnamed own brand of cars globally, putting to use technology gleaned from its foreign partners and from MG Rover.

Moving beyond a joint venture with foreign partners, it aims to sell more than 200,000 of its own-brand cars by 2010, with 45,000 of them shipped to overseas markets including Europe.

SAIC last year lost out to Nanjing Automobile in the bidding process for MG Rover, but owns the intellectual property rights to build the Rover 25 small car and Rover 75 saloon under an earlier deal.

Nanjing Auto plans to roll out its first locally made MG75 sedans in the first half of 2007 using acquired technology, state media said last month.

REUTERS CS PM1452