AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)09/30 Report--

Zhejiang Geely Holdings Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Geely Holdings") announced that it had completed the acquisition of 7.6% of the shares of British ultra-luxury performance brand Aston Martin Lagunda International Holdings (hereinafter referred to as "Aston Martin").

Geely always gives people the impression of "buying", and numerous car brands have been swallowed up by Geely. According to the official website, Geely Holdings Group currently owns Geely, Lecker, Polar Krypton, Geometry, Volvo, Polestar, Proton, Lutes, London Electric vehicles, long-distance New Energy Commercial vehicles, Taili Flying vehicles and other brands.

On December 23, 2009, Ford Motor and Geely Holdings announced that they had reached a preliminary agreement on Ford's sale of Volvo to Geely, with all important commercial terms agreed. On March 28, 2010, Geely Holdings and Ford officially signed an agreement in Gothenburg, Sweden, to formally acquire a 100% stake in Volvo for $1.8 billion, and Volvo became a Geely holding brand. On August 4, 2017, Geely holding Group and Geely Automobile Group signed a joint venture agreement with Volvo Motor, Lectra Motor became a three-way joint venture brand, and the joint venture company was formally established.

Founded in 1983, Proton is a wholly owned subsidiary of DRB-HICOM and the largest car company in Malaysia. British LOTUS was founded in 1948, is a world-famous sports car and racing car manufacturer, once translated as Lotus Sports car, headquartered in Hethel, England. In 1996, Proton Group successfully acquired LOTUS International, which announced its entry into the Chinese market in 2011 and released its official name "Lutes" in Chinese. Geely Holdings signed a final agreement with Malaysia's DRB-HICOM Group to acquire 49.9 per cent of DRB-HICOM 's PROTON and 51 per cent of luxury sports car brand Lotus on June 23rd.

Proton then went to Daimler (Daimler changed its name to Mercedes-Benz in February 2022). In February 2018, Geely Holdings acquired about 9.69% of Daimler for a huge amount of US $9 billion through its overseas enterprises, making it the largest single shareholder in Daimler Group. In March 2019, Geely Holdings and Daimler announced that they would set up a joint venture to jointly operate and promote the transformation of the smart brand around the world. The joint venture is headquartered in China and each has a 50% stake.

Geely Holdings twice offered an olive branch to Aston Martin, but Aston Martin was unimpressed. Geely Holdings is seeking to invest in Aston Martin and has held talks with investors and management of the company, but to no avail, the Financial Times reported on January 11, citing people familiar with the matter. After that, Aston Martin issued a statement that Aston Martin and Canadian billionaire Lawrence Straw (Lawrence Stroll) reached an agreement that the consortium led by Lawrence Straw will buy its 16.7% stake for 182 million pounds (about 1.658 billion yuan), while the subsequent rights issue supported by Stroll and other major shareholders will raise a further 318 million pounds (about 2.897 billion yuan).

In mid-July, Aston Martin revealed that it would bring in new strategic investors, along with news that Atlas, a consortium of Geely and Italy's InvestIndustrial, had invested 1.3 billion pounds in the British sports car maker. However, the board of directors of Aston Martin rejected the proposal, and the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which holds a stake in McLaren, eventually became the new major investor and the second largest shareholder, which will invest 78 million pounds in Aston Martin. And an additional rights issue of 575 million pounds, raising a total of 653.8 million pounds.

Industry insiders believe that Geely's stake in Aston Martin is reasonable, but the huge differences in business philosophy between the two sides have failed in both attempts. Geely's idea may be to let Aston Martin compete in the mass market, but the latter insists on its high-end position. There is no specific process for discussing why Geely Holdings was able to complete its 7.6 per cent stake in Aston Martin.

According to the data, Aston Martin is a well-known sports car manufacturer, founded in March 1913 by Lionel Martin (Lionel Martin) and Robert Bamford (Robert Banford), originally called Benford and Martin Co., Ltd. (Bamford & Martin Ltd.). In 1947, British entrepreneur David Brown (David Brown) acquired Aston Martin. In 1994, David Brown sold Aston Martin to Ford Motor and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford. In 2007, Ford sold most of its stake to a consortium led by Prodrive, a British racing company. In December 2012, Italian private equity fund Investindustrial announced a £150 million investment to acquire a 37.5% stake in Aston Martin. In October 2018, Aston Martin was listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Since the listing on the London Stock Exchange, Aston Martin has had a hard time, with its share price falling by 90% because of poor sales and even a quagmire of losses, forcing it to issue bonds to raise funds.

Affected by the blockade of the epidemic in China, the escalation of the situation in Russia and Ukraine and soaring costs, Aston Martin's supply chain and logistics problems have become more serious, leading to increased losses. According to the financial report, Aston Martin sold 2676 vehicles worldwide in the first half of 2022, with a pre-tax loss of 285.4 million pounds, compared with 90.7 million pounds a year ago. The board believes that the proposed financing will further support the company's reaffirmed medium-term goal of achieving a global target of about 10, 000 vehicles, about £2 billion in sales and about £500m in adjusted EBITDA by 2024-2025, with positive free cash flow starting in 2024.

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