MG Rover's administrators have been unimpressed with a £60m bid by Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation and the competition to buy the collapsed car company is still wide open, according to a member of the creditors' committee.
As the Chinese carmaker submitted a formal bid to the administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Richard Cort, the chairman of the Rover dealers' association, said the administrators had told him they were underwhelmed by the offer. "I don't know what the actual offer was but I understand that they [PwC] were very disappointed by both the quantum and the style of the Shanghai bid.
"I get the impression that this is anything but a done deal - it seems to me that the race to buy Rover is still wide open," said Mr Cort, who sits on the creditors' committee.
PwC refused to comment but Mr Cort's remarks may come as a relief to the other parties hoping to take control of MG Rover and its sister company, Powertrain.
SAIC is working with Magma, founded by Martin Leach, the former head of Ford Europe, and had been regarded as the frontrunner. But it is facing competition from the rival Chinese firm Nanjing Automobile and a separate bid from David James, the British "company doctor" who was brought in to rescue the Millennium Dome from collapse.
Mr James told the Guardian that "a major and highly respectable financial backer" was prepared to provide financing for a Rover bid, provided there was some sort of government support.
Mr James said he had "signalled" this to the government last week but had been told this was too late. This, Mr James said, was "crazy".
Mr James refused to disclose the identity of the backer but speculation quickly turned to Alchemy, the venture capitalists which failed to take control of MG Rover five years ago.
Jon Moulton, chairman of Alchemy, said: "I would have said if [there's a] government guarantee of course we'd do it.
"There's no reason that one will be forthcoming," he said, adding: "We are approached pretty much every day."
A spokesman for Mr James' bid, which is called Project Kimber after Cecil Kimber, MG's founder, said: "This is the last chance to save Britain's largest independent carmaker from falling into overseas ownership."
In the absence of government support, Mr James hopes to submit an unconditional offer to the administrators tomorrow. He has financing for the acquisition - but is refusing to disclose the identity of his backers - and is racing to put together working capital.
The rival Chinese bidder Nanjing has released details of the cars that it would like to manufacture but has given few clues as to the precise nature of its funding.
While PwC has given no public indication of a timetable to consider the proposals, the statement issued by SAIC yesterday appeared to be designed to put pressure on them to make a quick decision.
In a brief statement, it said: "SAIC believes that this proposal represents a compelling proposition for the creditors of the two companies and will focus on the development and distribution of new models and a resumption of car production at Longbridge."
It was hoped that PwC would be able to decide which of the proposals to choose this week. Their value is not clear but it is thought that the SAIC proposal would raise about £60m for the administrators.
There has been speculation that up to 2,000 jobs could be created within the next few years at the Birmingham plant if production was revived but no official figure has been put forward. Almost 6,000 Longbridge workers lost their jobs when MG Rover called in the administrators in April.
The administrators were called in when an original deal with SAIC collapsed. SAIC, though, had already spent £67m buying the intellectual property rights for some Rover cars and Powertrain engines.
