By Nick Aziz
Monday, Aug 7th, 2006 @ 11:14 am

With rampant speuclation about a possible sale of Jaguar and Land Rover, BusinessWeek takes a closer look at exactly what Ford’s various brands are worth. “The company is thinking that the sum of its parts may be worth more than its whole,” explains David Kiley. Kiley suggests Aston Martin could be sold as part of the Jaguar- Land Rover package. He also says Ford might be wise to close Mercury. “If you buy into the idea that Ford needs to focus its resources on the brands and businesses that have the most reasonable expectation of upside, you are left with Ford, Lincoln, and Volvo,” writes Kiley. “Can Ford get along with just three brands? So far, it’s working pretty well for Toyota, which has just Lexus and Scion in addition to its own flagship. And Toyota just passed Ford and is crowding GM to be the world’s biggest automaker.”