Engine maker Cosworth puts ex-Tata Motors boss on executive team

Carl-Peter Forster joined by former Williams F1 chairman and ex-MEP as Cosworth looks to recover from flotation failure

A Cosworth engineer works on a Zetec R V10 engine during the company's F1 heyday. Photograph: AP

Cosworth, the struggling car engine manufacturer, has appointed three high-profile executives in a bid to boost its fortunes after its owners failed to float the company in 2012.

The new appointments to the board of the Northamptonshire-based company were made on Thursday and are led by Carl-Peter Forster, former chief executive of Tata Motors, the parent of Jaguar Land Rover. He is joined by Adam Parr, a previous chairman of the Williams Formula One team, and Alan Donnelly a former MEP who founded communications agency Sovereign Strategy, which counts amongst its clients Bloomberg and Chinese telecoms firm Huawei.

Parr joined Williams as chief executive in 2006 before becoming chairman in 2010. He steered the team to a flotation on Frankfurt's junior exchange in 2011 but its performance was inadequate on track and that year he presided over the worst season in its 36-year history when it finished ninth in the standings.

Cosworth is going through a similar dip in performance as it reversed from a £3.9m profit in 2011 to a £7.1m net loss the following year as uncertainty over its ownership led to a crash in sales and a breach of its banking covenants. Cosworth quit Formula One engine manufacturing last year. It was founded in 1958 by the engineers Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth. In the 1980s it became synonymous with boy-racers as it helped to create the Ford Sierra Cosworth. The company was bought by Ford in the 1990s and then sold to its current owners, the venture capitalists Gerry Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven, in 2004.

The duo put Cosworth up for sale in October 2012 after trying for more than a year to float the company. They instructed investment bank UBS to find a buyer and last year Cosworth's chief executive Hal Reisiger said that "order intake was impacted as key customers waited to discover the outcome". Its accounts to 31 December 2012 show that revenue dropped 24% to £41.5m.