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Geely, as a "generous buyer", has bought a lot of luxury brands in recent years, and there are rumors a few days ago that Geely will acquire Volkswagen's ultra-luxury brand Bentley, due to Volkswagen's full electrification transformation. Only Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche brands will be retained, which means that luxury brands, including Bentley, will be sold. In response to the matter, it is reported that Yang Xueliang, vice president of Geely Automobile Group, replied that "there is no such thing".

It was previously reported that Volkswagen Group will launch a plan called Vision 2030 in late March. According to the plan, only Volkswagen (including Skoda, Seattle), Audi and Porsche brands will be retained in the future, and other brands may be sold or cut off.

Bentley, Volkswagen's only lossmaking subsidiary, turned into a profit-making business in 2018, with a loss of 280 million euros (more than 2.2 billion yuan). So if this plan is implemented, Bentley will be the first brand to sell.

In the face of the current situation of Bentley, its acquisition is also in line with the layout of Geely luxury car market and supercar market. Geely, which has frequently acquired shares in foreign brands in recent years, including Daimler, Proton, Lutes and other brands, at the same time, Geely also relies on the technical input of these brands to achieve a magnificent turn.

It can't be seen that Li Shufu's way of doing things has always been radical and profitable, just like Volvo, which was bought for $1.8 billion in 2010. Ford spent $6 billion to build it, and now Volvo has a market capitalization of $18.1 billion.

For cars, there is a grade division, there is a large gap between the price of each brand, the brand premium capacity can not go to the high end. Independent brands do not have much brand heritage, which makes it difficult for independent brands to move towards high-end positioning. If the acquisition of Bentley, then Geely's brand gold content will be greatly improved, more conducive to Geely to the high-end market.

Nowadays, the global automobile market tends to be in a downward trend, the rapid popularity of cars has basically ended, the new car market has entered an environment of low-speed growth, and consumers have upgraded their consumer demand for automobiles. It is gradually changing from low-end homogenized products to middle and high-end personalized products, so in the downward trend of the market in recent years, luxury brands can still achieve counter-trend growth.

Therefore, the juxtaposition of acquisitions has many advantages for Geely. According to Bentley's sales in China last year, the cumulative sales of 3000 vehicles accounted for about 30% of global sales, up 20% from the same period last year. If acquired by Geely, then the huge potential of the Chinese market will also guarantee follow-up revenue.

At present, the acquisition of Bentley is only a conjecture in the industry, and the reply from Vice President Yang Xueliang can only show that the plan is not in Geely's plan for the time being.

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