Russia's struggling carmaker Avtovaz has chosen Renault SA as a strategic partner and will sell the French company a 25 percent stake, the state-run concern that controls Avtovaz said on Friday.
Rosoboronexport said a deal on the sale was to be signed yesterday in the Volga River city of Togliatti, where Avtovaz is based. Renault spokeswoman Rochelle Chimenes confirmed the choice and said Avtovaz chairman Sergei Chemezov would present the project to Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn yesterday.
Losing ground to foreign rivals in a domestic market growing fast, Avtovaz has been seeking a major foreign partner. It had been considering various foreign companies, including General Motors Corp, Fiat SpA and reportedly Canadian auto-parts giant Magna International.
The iconic maker of the boxy little Lada sedans that were a staple among the relatively small number of car owners during the Soviet era, Avtovaz has found it difficult to keep pace with higher-quality foreign-made and foreign-designed cars.
Russia is one of the world's fastest-growing auto markets and is being increasingly targeted by the giant global manufacturers looking to offset stagnant markets in the US and Europe.
Ghosn said in September that Renault was in talks with Avtovaz about a joint venture and said the Russian market was "exploding."
According to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Russia has about 157 cars per 1,000 people.
Renault already has a Russian presence through its 93.4 percent-owned subsidiary Avtoframos, whose plant near Moscow has an annual capacity of 60,000 low-budget sedans developed by Renault's Romanian subsidiary Dacia.
GM confirmed earlier this week that it had submitted a formal bid for a stake in Avtovaz.
GM has been operating a joint venture with Avtovaz at a plant in Togliatti since 2001, but the companies' relationship has been rocky since the Russian government effectively took control of Avtovaz in 2005, when it was handed to Rosoboronexport, the state arms sales concern.
Last year, the joint venture temporarily halted production after a parts contract came under review. The two sides also were unable to agree on the joint construction of an engine plant in the central city of Samara, with AvtoVaz saying it feared it wouldn't be able to recoup its investment.
Rosoboronexport owns 75 percent plus one share in Avtovaz. In a statement after an Avtovaz board meeting, Rosoboronexport said the 25 percent stake sold to Renault would be shares owned by Rosoboronexport together with Troika Capital Partners.
Earlier on Friday, Rosoboronexport said it plans to eventually sell 50 percent of the total shares in Avtovaz, including 25 percent to a foreign carmaker chosen as a strategic partner, while retaining a share "sufficient for the effective management of the company."
Chemezov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, headed Rosoboronexport until recently. Last month, Putin placed Rosoboronexport under the umbrella of Rostekhnologia, a new state giant with broad control over technological production, and appointed Chemezov as its director.
TECH BOOST: New TSMC wafer fabs in Arizona are to dramatically improve US advanced chip production, a report by market research firm TrendForce said With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) pouring large funds into Arizona, the US is expected to see an improvement in its status to become the second-largest maker of advanced semiconductors in 2027, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report last week. TrendForce estimates the US would account for a 21 percent share in the global advanced integrated circuit (IC) production market by 2027, sharply up from the current 9 percent, as TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, the report said. TrendForce defined the advanced chipmaking processes as the 7-nanometer process or more
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip in the first quarter of next year, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US restrictions, two people familiar with the matter said. The telecoms conglomerate has sent samples of the Ascend 910C — its newest chip, meant to rival those made by US chipmaker Nvidia Corp — to some technology firms and started taking orders, the sources told Reuters. The 910C is being made by top Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) on its N+2 process, but a lack
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
OPEN SCIENCE: International collaboration on math and science will persevere even if the incoming Trump administration imposes strict controls, Nvidia’s CEO said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said on Saturday that global cooperation in technology would continue even if the incoming US administration imposes stricter export controls on advanced computing products. US president-elect Donald Trump, in his first term in office, imposed restrictions on the sale of US technology to China citing national security — a policy continued under US President Joe Biden. The curbs forced Nvidia, the world’s leading maker of chips used for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, to change its product lineup in China. The US chipmaking giant last week reported record-high quarterly revenue on the back of strong AI chip
RSS