Geely buys shares in Aston Martin

Aston Martin is the latest foreign brand to join Geely’s growing sphere of influence.

Overnight, the Chinese automaker announced it had bought a 7.6% stake in Aston Martin Lagonda.

Earlier reports suggest that Geely is interested in buying Aston Martin because it wants a different platform and technology partner for Lotus.

Currently Lotus is busy perfecting the dedicated EV premium car architecture that will underpin next year Cross Eletreas well as other models, including the Porsche Taycan rival.

New platforms, even when tied to vehicles with huge margins, are expensive beasts, and it’s possible Geely wants other manufacturers to use similar architectures like Lotus to improve economies of scale.

Eletre’s EV architecture is one of three that Lotus has in its production or production. The Evija hypercar lives on its own platform, while the Hethel-based company is also growing EV . sports car architecture with Alpine.

Coincidentally, Aston Martin is implementing an electrification strategy after a period of financial and management turmoil.

Most recent, the plan is publicly announced Aston Martin will launch its first EV in 2025 and have an all-electric lineup from 2026.

In mid-July, Aston Martin turned down an investment offer from Geely, choosing instead to seek more money from existing shareholders, while accepting a £78 million ($137 million) injection from the Investment Fund. Public Private Equity (PIF) of Saudi Arabia in exchange for a 16.7 percent stake in the company.

Two months ago, Aston Martin Fires CEO Tobias Moersreplacing him is former Ferrari director, Amedeo Felisa.

This isn’t the first time Geely has bought a minority stake in another automaker in hopes of a partnership.

In 2018, Geely acquired almost 10% of Mercedes-Benz to become the largest shareholder of the German carmaker.

After announcing several small joint ventures, Geely announced it had acquired a 50% stake in Smart from Mercedes-Benz. The two companies will then jointly develop a new generation of electric vehicles for the small car brand to be manufactured in China and exported around the world.

And just this year, Geely buys 34% controlling stake in Renault Korea Motors – formerly known as Renault Samsung Motors – after the two automakers agreed product and platform sharing transaction In 2021, Geely will design and manufacture Renault cars in China, while Renault Samsung will use the Geely architecture for its next generation of vehicles.

All of these actions demonstrate Geely’s willingness to buy into foreign automakers. It currently holds control of Volvo, EV automaker Polestar, LEVC (London’s iconic black cab maker), Lotus and Proton.

This is one of a number of selected in-house brands, including Lynk & Co, Zeekr, Geometry and others.

THAN: Which brand owns it, and how did we get here?