Rolls-Royce Holdings plc

Charles Rolls and Henry Royce met at the Midland Hotel in Manchester on May 4, 1904. Rolls was a wealthy aristocrat and motoring enthusiast who sold cars in London; Royce was a self-taught engineer from a poor family who had built his own car in Manchester. Rolls drove Royce's 10hp car and declared it the finest he had ever driven. They agreed that Rolls would sell all cars Royce could produce, badged as Rolls-Royce. The partnership united social connections with engineering genius in a combination that has defined the Rolls-Royce brand ever since.

Rolls-Royce launched the Silver Ghost in 1907 — a 40/50hp car that The Autocar magazine declared "the best car in the world" after a 15,000-mile reliability trial. The Silver Ghost was produced with minimal changes until 1925 — an extraordinary run for an automotive model. Henry Royce's engineering philosophy — "Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists and make it better" — established standards of quality and reliability that became the foundation of the Rolls-Royce mystique.

Rolls-Royce — which by the 1960s had become primarily an aero engine manufacturer while the car division remained a smaller part of the business — collapsed in 1971 under the weight of fixed-price contracts for the RB211 jet engine, which proved far more expensive to develop than estimated. The British government nationalised the company to prevent its collapse, separating the aero engine business (Rolls-Royce plc) from the car business (which was eventually sold to Vickers). The two companies have operated independently ever since, sharing only the name and the Spirit of Ecstasy mascot under a licensing arrangement.

Vickers sold the Rolls-Royce car brand in 1998 in one of the most complicated transactions in automotive history. Volkswagen Group paid £430 million for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars — only to discover it had bought the factory and the car designs but not the rights to the Rolls-Royce name, which were separately controlled by Rolls-Royce plc (the aero engine company). BMW, which had supplied engines to Rolls-Royce cars, paid £40 million for the brand name rights. BMW and Volkswagen agreed that Volkswagen would build Rolls-Royce cars until 2003, after which BMW would take over. BMW's Goodwood factory opened in 2003 and produced the Phantom — one of the most profitable luxury cars ever made.

Rolls-Royce aero engines power wide-body long-haul aircraft — the category most devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which grounded fleets worldwide. Rolls-Royce's revenue model depended on flying hours — it charged airlines per hour of engine use rather than selling engines outright. When planes stopped flying, revenue collapsed. Rolls-Royce raised £2 billion in emergency capital in 2020, cutting 9,000 jobs and selling multiple businesses. CEO Tufan Erginbilgin, appointed in 2023, began a transformation programme that returned the company to profitability and drove the stock to its highest level in years.