Steve Davies

As temperatures across the UK plummet below freezing, most drivers will be preoccupied with the traction of their tyres on Britain's icy roads, but for some there's an even bigger problem to worry about.

I've owned just one urban-SUV, the first generation Land Rover Freelander, and while we enjoyed the experience, it wasn't nearly useful enough to justify some of its more obvious limitations. However the market for urban-SUVs is booming, most notably for Nissan who produced more than 480,000 Qashqai, Qashqai +2, Juke in 2011.

The official reason given for this morning's announcement is that Jaguar’s US$1 million C-X75 supercar no longer fits with global economic conditions, but there's more to Jaguar's decision than this, which will no doubt have a significant impact on future hybrid-electric sports cars.

Last week's media coverage of the equity investment made by Investindustrial in Aston Martin has thus far focused entirely on the transaction, so I thought it might be interesting to step back a bit and take a look at how this new arrangement will deliver shareholder value for the company's owners.

After many weeks of discussion and approaches from other parties, Aston Martin has confirmed agreement for Investindustrial to take a a 37.5 per cent stake in the company, in exchange for £150m of equity capital.

Since our update last weekend, negotiations have moved on a notch - most notably with news that Mahindra & Mahindra may have withdrawn from discussions, while several new players have entered the frame to acquire part or all of the Aston Martin shares owned by Kuwaiti company, Investment Dar.