JLR to resume production from Wednesday following cyber attack

Jaguar Land Rover will restart manufacturing operations on Wednesday across sites in the West Midlands and Merseyside as it continues to recover from a major cyber attack.

The car maker also unveiled plans for a new financing scheme for struggling suppliers to fast-track payments, with cash up-front for qualifying firms suffering from the fallout of the hack.

The group said production workers will return as operations resume at its engine plant in Wolverhampton and its battery assembly centre in Coleshill, Birmingham, on Wednesday.

It will also restart the firm’s stamping operations in Castle Bromwich, Halewood in Merseyside, and Solihull, on Wednesday, together with key areas of its Solihull vehicle production plant, such as its body shop, paint shop and its logistics operations centre, which feed parts to the group’s global manufacturing sites.

JLR said this will be “closely followed” later this week by operations at its vehicle manufacturing in Nitra, Slovakia, as well as the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport production lines in the Solihull facility.

Adrian Mardell, chief executive of JLR, said: “This week marks an important moment for JLR and all our stakeholders as we now restart our manufacturing operations following the cyber incident.

“From tomorrow, we will welcome back our colleagues at our engine production plant in Wolverhampton, shortly followed by our colleagues making our world-class cars at Nitra and Solihull.

“Our suppliers are central to our success, and today we are launching a new financing arrangement that will enable us to pay our suppliers early, using the strength of our balance sheet to support their cash flows.”

“We know there is much more to do, but our recovery is firmly underway,” he added.

JLR said it would update further on the next steps of its “controlled restart”, including its Halewood plant in Merseyside.

The group has halted all manufacturing since the start of September after being targeted by hackers.

Experts have warned the production shutdown could hit the group’s bottom line by around £120 million, with the firm usually thought to build about 1,000 cars a day.

The pause has also left its suppliers in limbo, leading to fears that small firms producing parts for the car giant could collapse without financial support.

JLR has the largest supply chain in the UK automotive sector, which employs around 120,000 people and is largely made up of small and medium-sized businesses.

The Government recently announced it would underwrite a £1.5 billion loan guarantee to JLR to give suppliers some certainty over payments, helping bolster JLR’s cash reserves, but calls mounted for more to be done.

JLR said on Tuesday that its extended support package would see suppliers paid much faster than under the usual payment terms, by as much as 120 days early.

It will start with qualifying JLR suppliers seen as critical to the restart of production, then will be expanded to cover some non-production suppliers who have also been affected.

JLR also vowed to pay back financing costs for those JLR suppliers who use the scheme during the restart phase.

The firm said it will also publish second-quarter results later on Tuesday.