Midlands-based, iconic-car maker Aston Martin is thought to have secured as much as £100m in funding to support investment a new model range. That's good news for the firm that makes James Bond's favourite car.
The firm has been losing market share in recent years. It posted a pre-tax loss of almost £25m for the year ended December 2012. Sales were down by 9% to £460m in 2012.
Part of Aston Martin's struggle is down to the fact that the firm was loaded with debt after it was sold off by Ford. The cost of servicing this debt in turn impacted on new model development.
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While some new models have been introduced, the underpinnings of its current range of cars date back to the VH platform from the early 2000s and some pretty dated Ford technology.
They make look cool but the Aston Martin range of cars needs more than just a style make-over. Put simply, Aston Martin has fallen behind rivals.
Aston Martin was majority-owned during 2012 by Investment Dar (a Kuwaiti private equity group investment fund) which bought the firm in 2007 but then became overstretched in the global financial crisis and downturn.
Subsequent discussions over Investment Dar's much needed debt restructuring dragged on for years - in turn hampering Aston Martin's ability to invest in new models - as Dar resisted selling off key assets.
But late last year Investindustrial stepped in and invested £150m in return for a 37.5% stake.
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And Investment Dar has since said it will offer some of its assets, possibly including Aston Martin, to creditors. Dar will start making major disposals of its assets in 2017, using proceeds to meet repayment obligations.
These disposals will occur at around the end of Aston Martin's four year £500 million investment in new models culminating in its new DB9 and V8 models.
So the £100m loan will come in handy for Aston Martin. However, media reports the firm's "long-term future is well and truly confirmed" seem rather over-blown.
In fact, £100m - or even £500m - doesn't buy you very much in car industry terms: JLR spent over £440m on the new Range Rover for example.
So Aston Martin will have to spend that money very wisely if it is to come up with a new platform that underpins a range of new models. The loan is due to be repaid or refinanced in 2018.
So what will Aston Martin do with the money? While yet to be confirmed, a view circulating in the industry is that the firm will - like Lamborghini, Porsche and Bentley - create a luxury SUV.
Of course, making SUVs is akin to making tractors for some die-hard Aston Martin fans, but it's this SUV market which is set to surge ahead in coming years, especially in emerging economies like China and Aston need a slice of it.
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And given some pretty broad hints dropped by the boss of Aston's partner Daimler Benz, there may be scope for some platform sharing across the two brands. Indeed, Dieter Zetsche said recently that he was up for the idea of extending the partnership deal beyond the sharing of engines and electrical architecture.
That sparked rumours that platforms could be shared between the two for the next-generation Mercedes-Benz GL and the proposed Aston Martin Lagonda SUV.
The Merc GL will have a facelift next year, ahead of a completely new model being launched in 2018.
If Aston Martin could craft an SUV off the same platform (as Porsche does with VW), it would save Aston huge amounts in developments costs and speed up getting the car to market. It might just make the £100m go quite a lot further.
That could come on the back of the current engine deal which may see a new Aston SUV use a smaller, more fuel-efficient V8 Mercedes-Benz AMG rather than Aston's powerful V12. A Merc V8 could easily be adapted for an Aston SUV and used in a GL platform with an Aston body.
Beyond the SUV, Aston could also use the so-called "modular sports car architecture" (MSA) that Mercedes will use to underpin the next generation SL and SLK models which will appear in 2019 and 2020.
So while £100m isn't a lot in car industry terms, it could go quite a long way if the Aston - Mercedes tie-up is extended into platform sharing. That's a distinct possibility given that Dieter Zetsche has said that the partnership deal with Aston was "an entry point to a five per cent (share in Aston)". That sounded like he was interested in pushing the deal further.
Meanwhile, Investindustrial, appear keen to keep their stake in Aston for the next decade, so as to give them enough time to build up the brand and then sell their stake for a profit.
It took control of the Italian motorbike firm Ducati in 2005 before selling it to Audi (via Lamborghini) in 2012, so has experience of selling on to the right owner.
So longer term, I can see Aston being acquired by Daimler in the way that BMW has acquired Roll-Royce and VW now owns Bentley, Lamborghini and Porsche. Developing genuinely new cars is now so expensive that even the luxury sports car brands have been snapped up by bigger players.
I expect Aston to go the same way at some point.
- Professor David Bailey works at the in Birmingham.