Shanghai Automotive will produce Rover branded cars in China after it won a bidding war to buy the name from BMW.
Shanghai, which lost out in the auction to buy the Longbridge carmaker last year, beat the firm's current owner Nanjing Automobile in the race to acquire the trademark.
The company plans to use the name on its range of Rover 75 cars which have entered pre-production in China, industry sources said last night.
The sum paid by Shanghai, which had been Rover's erstwhile joint venture partner before the crash, is not known, but the deal is thought to have been sealed two weeks ago.
Shanghai and Nanjing were among several Far Eastern companies interested in acquiring the right to use the name, which was retained by BMW after it pulled out of Rover in 2000.
BMW insisted no decision had been made and negotiations were still ongoing.
The company's chief executive Helmut Panke said the decision about who gets to use the brand rested with Ford, with the American firm having first option.
Ford made the agreement with BMW when it bought Land Rover for #1.8 billion in 2000.
A spokeswoman for BMW said: "Under the agreement Ford can express an interest in what happens to the Rover trademark in the future.
"When Ford was negotiating the purchase of Land Rover, BMW was asked if an agreement could be put in place about the Rover trademark because of its similarity to the Land Rover trademark. We retained ownership of the Rover trademark and licensed it royalty-free to Phoenix."
The agreement means that if BMW reaches a price agreement with any of the Chinese carmakers, BMW will first ask Ford whether it would like to buy the Rover brand name at that price.
If Ford refuses to buy at the price, then BMW would sell it to the Chinese buyer.
