The plan will be voted on by workers later this week as speculation grows of a management purge among Rover's German owners BMW.

Reports circulating in the German and UK press say that Rover's chairman Walter Hasselkus will announce he is to take early retirement.

Green light

The deal, which will still see the loss of 2,500 jobs at Longbridge, has been sanctioned by senior union officials.

The Birmingham plant's 39,000 strong workforce are voting on whether to accept it this week.

Longbridge deal will see 2,500 jobs disappear

The package involves voluntary redundancies and radical new working practices.

The deal could also bring £1.7bn of investment to the plant, along with production of the new mini and a new medium-range car.

If it is accepted by the workforce it will then go to the BMW board for approval.

BMW rebuffs speculation

Walter Hasselkus, a German Anglophile, headed talks with union leaders that produced the £2.4bn rescue package.

But Rover refused to comment on what was described as "press speculation".

The German daily Handelsblatt said BMW's supervisory board made no fundamental decisions on personnel at last night's meeting.

The paper quoted a spokesman for the company's majority shareholders, the Quandt family, as saying that reports of disputes within the management board were "exaggerated."

The German newspaper Die Welt said on Tuesday that BMW marketing chief Wolfgang Reitzle was resisting plans by Chairman Bernd Pischetsrieder to make him the new head of Rover.

The report said Pischetsrieder wanted to give Reitzle the dual role of running both Rover and BMW's distribution network.