Seat buys Leyland assembly plant in Spain for £8.8m

Madrid, July 22 British Leyland today sold its Pamplona car assembly plant to. the Spanish company Seat for an agreed price of 1100m pesetas (about £8.8m). The sale includes a commitment on the part of Seat to employ the workers laid off in Pamplona earlier this year when Authi, BLMC's Spanish
subsidiary, ended production in Spain. According to Spanish news reports, Authi's small Barcelona parts plant has also been sold to a spare parts supplier, for 150m pesetas (over £1m).

However, no single' buyer has apparently yet been found for the Authi engine plant It is expected that the Santander plant, which once employed more than 2,000, might be partitioned and sold to more than one buyer. The Spanish government is helping British Leyland to find a buyer or buyers because it is anxious, to find new jobs for the dismissed workers.

Seat, which manufactures cars under licence from Fiat, is expected to produce the 124 model at Pamplona beginning early next year, with a target of 10,000 units per year. Authi produced about 200,000 BLMC cars in Spain, 140,000 of them Minis.