Is Geely buying Volvo?

CrzRsn

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Any talk of brands for sale in the auto industry invariably includes a Chinese automaker as one potential bidder. As such, it's not surprising to hear that Chinese automaker Geely is reportedly in the running to buy Volvo from Ford. Chinese media, however, have begun reporting that Geely has actually signed a deal with the Dearborn-based automaker to buy the last remaining brand from Ford's now-defunct Premium Auto Group.

Has it actually happened? Both Ford and Volvo have made no official statements that would confirm what's being reported in the Chinese media. Official confirmations usually come after a deal has been widely reported in the media, though. However, the only outlets reporting this rumor are from China. We haven't heard a peep from any Swedish-based news organizations, which is surprising considering they were on the ball last week reporting that Koenigsegg had struck a deal with General Motors to buy Sweden's other big auto brand, Saab.

Swedespeed.com actually asked Volvo if the reports of a sale to Geely were true. James Hope, Volvo's US Product Communications Manager, had this to say.

"An announcement related to the sale of Volvo Car Corp. would only come from Ford Motor Company. As of today [Wednesday, June 17, 2009], neither Ford Motor Company nor Volvo Car Corporation in Sweden has made any announcement regarding the sale of Volvo. Reports of such a sale by any media outlet are speculative and, therefore, are not accurate."


There you have it. If an agreement has been struck by Geely and Volvo's parent company Ford, nobody's except the Chinese are talking about it.


Please no. :cry:. Koenigsaab, just absorb Volvo while your at it.
 
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The least safe manufacturer, buying the worlds safest manufacurer. :blink:
 
Please no. :cry:. Koenigsaab, just absorb Volvo while your at it.

It doesn't need to be all bad.. The Chinese will have all the monies in a few years.. And if they give Volvo money to produce cars and then take the tech, so what if the owners chinese?

And you do realize Volvo owns a bit of Koenigsegg.. ;)
 
Dear God no :cry:

Last thing I need is for my 740 to burn out because of cheap Chinese parts; that's if they even decide to keep support for the old cars.

It doesn't need to be all bad.. The Chinese will have all the monies in a few years.. And if they give Volvo money to produce cars and then take the tech, so what if the owners chinese?

And you do realize Volvo owns a bit of Koenigsegg.. ;)

I believe that's Volvo proper that owns Koenigsegg, iirc; not Volvo Cars. There are a lot of Volvo fans that would like to see Volvo AG buy Volvo Cars back, but Volvo AG seems more interested in becoming Europe's number one builder of semi-trucks than anything else.
 
I believe that's Volvo proper that owns Koenigsegg, iirc; not Volvo Cars. There are a lot of Volvo fans that would like to see Volvo AG buy Volvo Cars back, but Volvo AG seems more interested in becoming Europe's number one builder of semi-trucks than anything else.

Nope it's Volvo cars that owns a small stake in Koenigsegg.
And it would obviously be better if the Volvo group bought back Volvo cars, but all I'm saying is: Having a Chinese owner doesn't necessarily need to be a complete disaster, as long as they stay out of the design process Volvo will be fine. Probably better than now because Ford won't force them to use their crap engines..
 
Has this happened in another industry before? A chinese newcomer buying out an established western player?

Anyway, I have no doubts about what they're gonna do with Volvo - they're gonna absorb all the technological know-how they have, and they're not gonna make many changes to Volvo because they know better than fiddling with markets they don't understand. (Unlike US companies)

In 15 years, we should have fully competitive Chinese cars, just like we have fully competitive Chinese loudspeaker driver companies.
 
Last thing I need is for my 740 to burn out because of cheap Chinese parts; that's if they even decide to keep support for the old cars.

If they even buy Volvo it doesn't mean they're going to instantly move production of old parts to some slum in China.

Hell, the Chinese have threatened to buy Land Rover, Jaguar, Saturn, Saab, Opel, and all of GM. The only one they've gotten away with is Hummer, and that's because it's a crap brand that's even despised in China. Rover is proof that the Chinese aren't going to mismanage established Western brands; they've already introduced new product that's up to Western standards and even concept cars. And owning Volvo could help Geely out with their own safety standards (one of their newly introduced cars here is already being advertised as having "five stars" in the C-NCAP, whatever that is).

Lastly, Volvo is still held to be an esteemed brand in China. If anything, the Chinese themselves would riot if anything brand-diluting was to happen.
 
Has this happened in another industry before? A chinese newcomer buying out an established western player?

Yes, Lenovo bought IBM's consumber computer division. It seems like they are running it just fine. But yea, I don't want to see Geely buying Volvo either. If a Chinese company have to buy it, I would rather it be SAIC, at least they build somewhat decent but outdated VW cars and not their own shitty designs.
 
And you do realize Volvo owns a bit of Koenigsegg.. ;)

$1000 worth isn't exactly meaningful.

Has this happened in another industry before? A chinese newcomer buying out an established western player?

You don't need to go to another industry, see MG Rover.
 
$1000 worth isn't exactly meaningful.



You don't need to go to another industry, see MG Rover.

MG Rover was hardly in the state Volvo is, and hadn't been a major player for over 30 years!
 
Yes, Lenovo bought IBM's consumber computer division. It seems like they are running it just fine.

The Lenovo case is different as producition and (parts of) the design of IBM's consumer hardware, especially the ThinkPad Laptops, had been outsourced to Lenovo for years before Lenovo completely took over when IBM decided to pull out of the consumer market.
 
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