If you read the excerpt below from the link posted above, it leaves no doubt that Lotus wasn't doing at all well, in spite of impressions to the contrarry. The Elise and Exige might have been magazine favourites and perhaps in the UK a few circulated on the roads but they were not real international sales successes.

As if that eternal lack of profitability wasn't enough, Bahar was milking the company with his own extravagance.

Under Bahar’s stewardship, Lotus has been bleeding red ink, putting its parent Proton under tremendous strain.

Affin Investment Bank said in a September 2011 report that Lotus was expected to continue bleeding red ink until 2014 at the very least.

Proton has not made any profit from the British unit over the past 15 years and Lotus has been struggling to compete against other sportscar makers such as Porsche AG and Ferrari in Europe.

In 2010, Proton sought to turn around Lotus with a five-year business transformation plan that would potentially cost up to RM2.37 billion, a project that has since been a drag on the
Malaysian company’s earnings.

There have also been talk in the market of a consortium of local banks, which includes CIMB Bank Bhd and Malayan Banking Bhd, having stopped lending money to Lotus due to its management’s
inability to meet certain conditions in their loan agreements.

Thus far, the bankers have advanced Lotus as much as £200 million (RM984 million).

Business Times reported in April that Lotus was in dire straits, with Proton having to pump in between £5 million and £8 million a week into it.


 

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"Form follows function"