China’s Great Wall considers bid for Fiat Chrysler Jeep unit

Chinese SUV builder Great Wall Motors is deliberation creation a bid to buy Fiat Chrysler’s Jeep unit, spokespeople for a association pronounced Monday, in a probable desirous new step onto a tellurian theatre for China’s fast-growing automobile brands.

Great Wall has nonetheless to rigourously announce a seductiveness in Jeep, though a probable merger would be in line with authority Wang Jianjun’s goal, announced in February, of apropos a tip specialty SUV writer by 2020.

Great Wall “has this intention,” pronounced a open family executive for a Haval SUV brand, Zhao Lijia, when asked about a news by Automotive News that a Chinese automaker wants to buy Jeep. An worker of a press bureau for a association headquarters, who would give usually his surname, Zhang, said, “Yes, we are meddlesome in Jeep.”

Zhao and Zhang pronounced they had no other sum when asked about a probable price. Zhao pronounced it competence take some time to arrange a grave bid.

Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has pronounced a association is for sale and can't contest globally though a tie-up to a bigger partner due to a high costs of building and selling vehicles.

In a matter Monday, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV pronounced it had not been approached by Great Wall.

Marchionne pronounced in Apr that Jeep and Chrysler’s Ram lorry code are clever adequate to mount alone. The association spun off a Ferrari code in 2015 into a apart business.

Chinese companies in industries from autos to robots are spending billions of dollars to acquire brands and record to strengthen their rival position during home and speed their development.

Great Wall Motors Ltd., headquartered in Baoding, southwest of Beijing, is one of a array of eccentric Chinese automakers that have grown adult alongside state-owned giants such as Shanghai Automotive Industries.

Expanding globally

If it goes forward with a Jeep bid, Great Wall could turn a second Chinese automaker, after Geely Holding Group, to enhance onto a tellurian theatre by appropriation an determined unfamiliar brand.

Geely bought Sweden’s Volvo Cars from Ford Motor Co. in 2010 and has launched a third brand, Lynk Co., as a partnership between Volvo and Geely’s Chinese brand.

In June, Geely bought a 49.9 per cent seductiveness in Malaysian automaker Proton and a determining seductiveness in British sports automobile builder Lotus.

In 2011, a state-owned Chinese automaker, Dongfeng Motor Group, bought 14 per cent of France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen, Europe’s second-largest automaker.

Great Wall sole only underneath 1.1 million SUVs final year, behind Jeep’s 1.4 million. Its income of 98.6 billion yuan ($14.4 billion US) was a fragment of FCA’s tellurian sum of $118 billion US (111 billion euros), though a $1.5 billion US distinction was roughly equal to a Italian-U.S. automaker’s $1.8 billion US.

Great Wall also can pull on clever direct in China, a biggest automobile marketplace by units sold. Total SUV sales rose 16.8 per cent over a year progressing to 4.5 million in a 6 months finale in June.

Great Wall emerged from a common founded in a 1980s to correct and customize vehicles. Wei, afterwards 26, took control in 1990 and shifted into automobile manufacturing. The association launched a initial sedan in 1993 though narrowed a concentration a decade ago to SUVs.

Wei pronounced in Feb that a company’s “globalization strategy” enclosed improving record to accommodate U.S. reserve standards. But he gave no denote when Haval competence trade to a United States or vital European markets such as Germany.

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/great-wall-jeep-fiat-chrysler-1.4255519?cmp=rss