But Ford might have to throw in Land-Rover to make the deal sufficiently sweet.Then there are the Koreans, who have the ambition and might just make a fist of owning Jaguar. The X-type baby Jag was little more than a Ford in drag and probably won't be replaced when it reaches the end of the road.So who might be interested in taking Jaguar off Ford's hands? Toyota has a luxury brand of its own in the Lexus, which competes toe-to-toe with Jaguar in the US, and BMW has already ruled itself out. No sooner had its quality problems been ironed out than the business was hit by the vicious headwind of a dollar exchange rate approaching $1.90 to the pound - a killer for any company that exports half its production to the US.Nor has the product line-up been consistent. For every success - such as the XK sports car which is sold out for the year - there has been a lemon. The retro-style S-type saloon looked more like a frump with a sagging bottom than something Inspector Morse would have been seen in.

Instead of doubling production to 200,000 a year, the new business plan entailed selling fewer cars, but hopefully at a bigger profit.Just when Dearborn thought the investment was finally beginning to pay off, the Premier Automotive Group, of which Jaguar is a part, turned in a $162m loss for the second quarter of this year, prompting Henry's great grandson to tell Reuters that "nothing is off the table in terms of any of our entities".In truth Jaguar has never really fired on all six cylinders for Ford. Ford also took the opportunity to jettison the grand expansion plan for Jaguar dreamed up by its previous chief executive Jacques Nasser. Since then, the business has lost money in more years than it has turned a profit.The crunch came in 2004 when Ford finally bit the bullet, closing down Jaguar's Browns Lane factory in Coventry and recapitalising the business with a further £1.2bn cash injection after suffering a £460m loss. Ford paid a ridiculous £1.6bn in 1989 to take Jaguar off Sir John Egan's grateful hands - a figure which included £1.2bn worth of goodwill. Mr Swift said it was small beer as Hanson generates £500m of cash annually but admitted asbestos claims would dog the company for the next 20 years. It is also suing its insurers for additional asbestos cover.. For sale: Iconic British car company Would suit leather (and walnut) fetishist Germans, Japanese and previous bidders need not apply May throw in a 4-wheel drive brand as well All reasonable offers considered.

Has Ford finally decided to chuck in the towel and sell Jaguar after pumping in the thick end of £4bn to keep its very own English patient alive these past 17 years? If the rumours coming out of Dearborn are correct, then Bill Ford, the great grandson of the founder and current chief executive, has indeed put the future of the famous luxury marque under review.The Blue Oval has big enough problems of its own to worry about without being distracted by Jaguar's continuing ability to disappoint. The group has also been hurt by a trend away from building houses to putting up blocks of apartments, which use fewer bricks, though the group finance manager Nick Swift said this was a temporary phenomenon.Group pre-tax profits from continuing operations climbed 12 per cent to £194m in the half. Mr Swift said: "The US is a great engine of growth for us and we have a lot of firepower [to make acquisitions]. The UK had a tough time on bricks but will come back."Hanson gets a third of its business from the UK and about half from America, where it raised prices by 12 per cent for aggregates (gravel and sand) and building materials to offset energy costs. In Britain and Australia it raised prices by around 6 per cent.Hanson wants to double the size of its US business and spent £540m buying up 12 smaller rivals in the first half, with further deals expected in the second half.The group remains embroiled in lawsuits related to asbestos, which it inherited from acquired businesses and are costing it £15-20m a year.

Soaring energy costs and a slowdown in the DIY market more than halved profits at Hanson's British building products business and forced it to shut two brick-making plants this year, with the loss of 125 jobs. Brick volumes were down 19 per cent in the first half of the year, while higher energy costs added £50m to Hanson's fuel bill. The company admitted the market had been bad for 12 months, with fewer people building extensions. The company said the timing of the two events was unconnected.. Hanson suffered a sharp drop in brick sales in the UK, but the building materials group was rescued by a strong performance from its US operations, which enabled it to post better-than-expected profits yesterday. Ironically, PowerHouse's collapse comes as falling prices of flat-screen television has triggered a sales boom at Comet and Currys.PRG said it received a bid for the remaining 19 per cent that Logan, its biggest shareholder, does not already own. It shut stores and cut jobs to try to turn the business around but PowerHouse, which was formed when the retail businesses of three regional electrical companies, Midlands, Southern and Eastern, were privatised, has always been a weak third player in the market.Rising rents and increased competition recently prompted DSG to turn its Dixons high street chain into an internet-based retailer It has rebranded the stores as Currys.digital. The future of 150 employees who work in distribution and at its head office in Bicester, Oxfordshire, is uncertain.John Hannett, general secretary of the shopworkers' union Usdaw, said: "Our members in Powerhouse have worked miracles in keeping Powerhouse afloat." An Usdaw spokesman added: "There is no way you can sweeten the pill of redundancy but to just turn up and find the doors are locked and you can't go in is a terrible situation." The last retailer to treat staff similarly was Courts, the furniture chain that went bust in December 2004.When PRG bought PowerHouse in August 2003 it paid £16m for a loss-making group with 223 stores and 800 staff.

Industry sources said it was unlikely that Currys, DSG's high street chain, or Comet, which is owned by Kesa Electricals, would be interested.PRG, which announced its biggest shareholder had launched a bid to take it private, stopped short of promising PowerHouse's customers that they would not be left out of pocket. "It is hoped that most purchases will be honoured," the company said.Martha Thompson, business restructuring partner at BDO, said all 50 PowerHouse outlets had been closed and 500 staff made redundant. "We believe [this] is the most responsible course of action, in the interests of all the creditors," he said.BDO Stoy Hayward, the administrator, said it would seek to sell the company and its assets. Around 500 staff turned up for work to find the group's 50 UK outlets shut and themselves out of a job In February, the retailer shut its 27 stores in Scotland. At the time, Pacific Retail Group (PRG), the New Zealand group that bought PowerHouse from its last set of administrators, claimed the rest of the business was on track to break even by next year. But yesterday PRG's chairman, Jock Irvine, said competition from internet-based rivals had forced it to beat a retreat from the High Street.