EVERYONE at the Longbridge plant had expected the news for weeks yet, when it finally came, nobody quite knew how to react.

When the suspension was announced shortly after 10am, some workers stood motionless on the factory floor. Others walked straight out of the gates. A few even carried on working, finishing what little there was left to do.

At one time the workers would have blamed the Government for their predicament. This time, many focused their anger on the management of MG Rover. The “Phoenix Four” were hailed as heroes when they salvaged a deal to buy Rover from BMW in 2000. But the money that flowed into their pockets in the intervening years has cast them in a less flattering light.

The four — John Towers, chairman; Nick Stephenson, deputy chairman; Peter Beale, vice-chairman; and John Edwards, a director — each put up £60,000 of risk capital against the sale, in which BMW sold Rover to the Phoenix consortium for a nominal £10, plus a loan of £550 million to be repaid in 2049.

They went on to take £2.5 million each from the loss-making company. The £10 million total was the repayment of a “loan note”. They also received interest of £1.2 million.

The four said that the payout was justified by their success in staging the takeover and because they paid advisers’ fees.

In November 2003 it emerged that the four — plus Kevin Howe, MG Rover’s chief executive — had set up a £13 million trust fund that mainly benefits them and their families. It was set up in 2002, the year that MG Rover made a pre-tax loss of £77 million.

The trust helped to increase the total pay to Phoenix’s directors by more than 300 per cent to £15.1 million, according to the full company accounts for 2002. Last year Jim O’Donnell, the head of BMW in Britain, described the men as “the unacceptable face of capitalism”.

Mr Towers, 57, was chief executive of Rover from 1992 to 1996. He has earned at least £8.7 million in salary, pension contributions and returns on the “loan note” and the wind-up of MGR Capital, a leasing business that the four founders bought the year after the take-over for £1 million.

Mr Towers joined Rover in 1988, having previously run Massey Ferguson Tractors. Married, with two children, he has an engineering degree from Bradford University.

Mr Stephenson, a design engineer and accomplished drag racer, also previously worked for Rover. When Phoenix was formed, he was a consultant for a number of companies, such as Lola, the racing group.

In addition to payments from Rover, Mr Stephenson has also benefited from Mira, a company of which he is a director, being contracted by MG Rover for consultancy services worth nearly £2.4 million in the two years to the end of 2002.

Now it is the workers who fear losing their homes after the announcement late last night that the company is going into receivership.

Dave Wilkins, 44, who has worked there for 20 years, said: “Morale is at rock bottom. It’s rumours and rumours.” Another man said: “People are worrying about whether they will lose their house and how their families will suffer.”

Ron Trueman, with 25 years of service, said: “The mood has gone down and the fight has really gone out of everyone. I’ll keep turning up until they shut the factory gates. It’s the same for everyone.”

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