John Towers (businessman) Nick Stephenson and John Edwards, Towers formed Phoenix Venture Holdings (PVH) which bought Rover Group for £10 in April 2000. In addition they also bought the Studley Castle, a conference hotel. They subsequently purchased Midland Powertrain, MG Rover's engine plant from BMW for £20. Finally, for £50 along with an undisclosed sum from the Royal Bank of Scotland, they purchased Rover Capital, (now MG Rover Capital) a book of Rover car loans. Kevin Howe was appointed MG Rover's Managing Director in July 2000. In April 2005, MG Rover went into administration, following the collapse of takeover talks with Shanghai Automotive
John Stephenson (actor) Mr. Speck, and the villain of that episode, The Specter. Still, another voice Stephenson was noted for, was his take on "Boris Karloff". A lot of the Karloff-sounding villains in early episodes of "Scooby-Doo" were provided by Stephenson. He played Hairy Scary on "Casper and the Angels" along with "Casper's Halloween Special" and "Casper's First Christmas". He also played Farmer John Arable in the 1973 Hanna-Barbera animated feature "Charlotte's Web". John Stephenson borrowed the vocal traits of Joe Flynn for several characters as mentioned earlier, Boris Karloff for several more, and did a Jimmy Durante for the 1970s and 1980s