Mike,
The PSA group 8 speed automatics are developed by Aisin Seiki, a huge gearbox maker owned by Toyota. PSA negotiated the manufacture of the gearboxes in France (and/or Spain) using Aisin supplied tooling.
BMW gearboxes are supplied by ZF Friedrichshafen, the 8HP is one of the best, but some others are not quite so good.
Be aware however that most BMW’s available on the scheme use a dual clutch gearbox supplied by Getrag (same as Ford, Volvo, Renault, MB). You may hear that these gearboxes are from Magna, but that’s because Magna bought Getrag..phew..
In life, it's not who you know that's important, it's how your wife found out.