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On February 23, the media reported that Volvo would transfer its 62.7% stake in Polar to Geely Holdings. If the proposal is approved, Volvo will still hold 18% of the shares after the transfer is completed. At present, Geely Sweden Holdings Co., Ltd. has expressed its support for the allocation and confirmed its intention to vote in favor of the allocation at the 2024 annual general meeting.

On February 1 this year, Volvo said it was evaluating its stake adjustment in Ji Xing Automobile and may allocate its shares to other shareholders. Volvo parent Geely Holdings Group will become the new shareholder of Ji Xing. At that time, Volvo owned 48% of Polaris. In addition, Volvo would no longer provide funds to Polaris and extend the repayment period of existing convertible loans by 18 months to the end of 2028. On the same day, Geely Holdings issued a statement supporting Volvo to make a potential adjustment to its stake in Polaris. If the equity adjustment is completed, Geely Sweden Holdings will become an important new shareholder of Polar. Geely Holdings will continue to provide comprehensive operational and financial support for the Star brand, and such support does not need to reduce Geely Holdings' stake in Volvo.

Data show that Volvo is a well-known Swedish luxury car brand, once translated as a tycoon, founded in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1927. Polar Star was originally a high-performance electrified R & D department acquired by Volvo. Volvo proposed a full electrification transformation in 2017, and then announced in October of the same year a joint venture brand with Geely, Polestar, headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden. At this point, Polar has become an independent high-end electric car brand jointly launched by Geely and Volvo, and a new new energy vehicle brand has been added to Geely's new energy product series. In the auto market, Polar Motor mainly competes with Tesla.

Volvo's cumulative global sales in 2023 rose 15 per cent year-on-year to 708716 vehicles, an all-time high, according to data. Of these, cumulative sales in China rose 5 per cent to 170091 vehicles, accounting for about 24 per cent of total sales.

As a luxury electric car brand jointly built by Geely and Volvo, there is much room for improvement in the development of Star Motors in the Chinese market. Data show that cumulative global sales of Star cars rose 6 per cent year-on-year to 54600 vehicles in 2023, but the Chinese market was not officially released. Unlike other Geely brands, Polar focuses mainly on overseas markets, the Chinese market is not very loud, and it has hardly announced its sales performance in the Chinese market. It is reported that the sales of Star cars in China were 2048 in 2021, 1717 in 2022 and 1100 in 2023, down 34% from the same period last year, a far cry from the mainstream car companies in the market.

According to the plan, Polar originally set an annual global sales target of 80,000 vehicles in 2023, but taking into account the delay in mass production of new cars and other reasons, Polar has announced that it will reduce global sales this year to between 60,000 and 70,000 vehicles, a reduction of as much as 25%. As a reference, the data show that the global delivery volume of Star Motors in 2022 was 51491, an increase of 80% over the same period last year, setting an all-time high. In January, Star Motors said it planned to cut about 450 jobs worldwide, or about 15% of its workforce, in a "challenging market environment". The main purpose of the layoffs is to accelerate profit margin improvement and reduce the company's total capital needs, so as to achieve cash flow balance by 2025. The industry believes that the sales performance of Polaris in China is generally related to the fierce competition for electric cars in the Chinese market, which makes it difficult for Polaris to make a profit by 2025.

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