Businessman David James has dropped his plans to buy collapsed car manufacturer MG Rover.

Mr James was part of a consortium that planned to purchase Rover, which went bankrupt earlier this year, and continue to manufacture cars at the Longbridge plant.

The consortium wanted to concentrate on creating an MG car firm, as the MG is seen as the most valuable Rover brand.

However, the plans depended on China’s Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation purchasing the Rover subsidiary engine manufacturer Powertrain and buying the remaining Rover assets a year later.

Mr James told BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme that it became clear over the weekend that SAIC were not going to agree with the plans.

Mr James told Today that the consortium would have given SAIC places on the board, as well as 25% of the new MG company as a “gift”. He said: “It would have been a logical progression towards an eventual time when SAIC would have owned everything.”

It has been reported that another firm, Nanjing Automobiles, has expressed interest in MG Rover.

MG Rover went into administration in April, with the loss of 5,500 jobs at the firm’s Longbridge plant.

(KMcA/SP)