GOD Save the Queen blared from the MG Rover stand last week as the embattled Midlands carmaker returned to the Geneva Motor Show. The anthem was for the Olympic rowing gold medallist Matthew Pinsent, enlisted to unveil a revamped Rover 75.

MG Rover executives hoped all the talk would be of the new car, but they were wrong. On the morning of the launch, a national newspaper again aired asset-stripping accusations made against the company directors since they bought the manufacturer from BMW for a token sum.

By the end of the day the stand, comprising a suite of offices surrounded by a ring of cars, was reminiscent of a Western wagon train drawn into a circle to repel attack.

Kevin Howe, MG Rover's chief executive, could not hide his exasperation. “They (the paper) mysteriously chose the day of the motor show when we are launching a car — it’s uncanny,” he said.

BMW sold Rover to the Phoenix consortium set up by four Midlands businessmen — John Towers, John Edwards, Peter Beale and Nick Stephenson — who then hired Howe.

The four are accused of having enriched themselves by restructuring the group to create a holding company, hiving off the most profitable parts of the operation into separate subsidiaries.

The Phoenix four enjoyed public support at the time of the buyout. But even their fiercest proponents were shaken last year when it was revealed that £13m had been put into a trust fund to provide retirement benefits for senior executives while the main staff pension fund faced a £73m deficit.

Howe said the restructuring was normal business practice. “It’s only written about because it is us,” he said. Some operations — such as Powertrain, which makes engines and gearboxes — had been kept separate at the insistence of their third-party customers.

Car making was central to Phoenix’s business plan. “Some of this stuff (newspaper reports) says that the guys have structured it so we can get rid of this annoying car assembly and we will then be left with all this nice profitable business. But do you think Powertrain would be viable if you didn’t have MG Rover taking 80% of its production?”

Defenders and critics alike agree that the key to MG Rover’s future will be its new medium-sized car to replace the ageing 45 series. Howe said it would not be ready until the end of next year.