Chery chairman: carmaker to avoid foreign purchases

• Source: Global Times
• [08:05 December 16 2009]
• Comments

Chery Automobile, China's largest indigenous carmaker, will basically stay away from overseas acquisitions even though it has been approached repeatedly, its chairman was quoted as saying Tuesday.

"We have been offered many fancy proposals (by investment bankers). Their business is to buy and sell," Yin Tongyao said in an interview published on Sohu.com, a Chinese Internet portal.

"They want you to get married today and split the next day," he said. "This is typically what investment bankers do, and we won't be hoodwinked."

Yin also denied overseas media reports about Chery's purchase of a Fiat car plant on the Italian island of Sicily. "I was told that foreign media said we had bought a Fiat plant. There is no such thing," Yin was quoted as saying.

Italy's La Repubblica newspaper had reported that Chery was in talks to take over the Fiat car factory.

Industry sources said that they were "bemused" and did not see it making sense for Chery, as the plant is on an island and the logistics of exporting had hampered its current owner, Fiat.

Chery executives could not be reached immediately for comment. Fiat declined to comment.

Still, many other Chinese automakers have been chasing Western brands to take advantage of a global industry downturn.

Beijing Automotive Industry Holding, China's fifth-largest automaker, has acquired some assets of General Motors' Saab unit as part of a push to develop its own cars. Geely Automobile Holdings group has also been named the preferred bidder for Ford's Volvo car business.

Chery, maker of one of China's best-selling compact cars, the QQ, had also tried to raise its profile by cooperating with foreign automakers, but refrained from doing so to avoid risks, Yin said. Rather than acquiring and trying to revive an overseas brand, Chinese automakers can also work their own way up to the higher end, he said in March.

Reuters