BMW rebuffed a report in Saturday's Le Journal des Finances quoting its chief executive Bernd Pischetsrieder saying the group might sell its stake in Anglo-German BMW Rolls-Royce GmbH if it decided not to invest further in the venture.

``There are no considerations to get out of the aero engines business at BMW,'' a BMW spokesman said on Monday. Pischetsrieder had said important decisions had to be made by the end of next year about the future of the Rolls-Royce GmbH and BMW wanted to make full use of capacity at its plants, the spokesman said.

BMW Rolls-Royce GmbH, established in 1990, operates two plants, one at Oberursel, near Frankfurt, and another at Dahlewitz near Berlin. Rolls-Royce holds 49.5 per cent of the company.

The French newspaper quoted Pischetsrieder saying a ``strategic decision about aero engines'' would be madeat the end of 1999, and that the company would have to step up investments or ``this business may be sold.''

Around 100 aero engines have been assembled and delivered to aircraft manufacturers since series production began in August 1996, BMW said in its 1997 annual report.

Last year marked the transition from the start-up and development phase to sustainable business activities, it said.