The loan to the Tata-owned car maker will be issued by a commercial bank, but will be underwritten by the UK government.
As well as costing JLR an estimated £50 million a week, the cyber attack has badly hit the firm’s suppliers.
It’s estimated that around 150,000 people are employed by some 700 British firms that supply JLR, and the UK government has been investigating ways to support them, such as a furlough scheme or loans.
It will instead underwrite a single loan to JLR through the Export Development Guarantee (EDG), with JLR repaying the money over a period of five years.
Business secretary Peter Kyle said on 27 September that the loan guarantee “will help support the supply chain and protect skilled jobs in the West Midlands, Merseyside and throughout the UK”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves added that the loan would help JLR “support their supply chain and protect a vital part of the British car industry”.
Since the attack, JLR has been able to restore some of its IT systems following the back and was able to start paying some of its suppliers.
JLR hack: what happened?
Autocar first reported issues affecting JLR on 1 September, when dealers couldn’t register new cars on ‘new plate day’ , traditionally one of the year’s busiest for registrations.
