P.M. BRIEFING : Jaguar Chief to Bow Out in June

British luxury carmaker Jaguar announced today that chairman Sir John Egan will retire from the company at the end of June to pave the way for expansion under its new owner, the Ford Motor Co.

Egan, 50, has spent the last 10 years at the head of Jaguar, turning the company around after a bumpy ride in the 1970s.

A Jaguar statement quoted him as saying: “My advice to Ford was that the big growth opportunities available to Jaguar under their ownership could only be fully exploited if the company was led by a senior Ford executive.”

It said he is to be succeeded July 1 by fellow Briton William Hayden, appointed today as Jaguar’s chief executive. Hayden, 61, has been vice president of Ford of Europe’s Manufacturing Group for the last year.

The U.S. automotive giant bought Jaguar for 1.6 billion ($2.6 billion) in December after unfavorable exchange rates and poor North American sales caused profits to plunge.