Geely Group (吉利), one of China’s main independent automakers, is considering bidding for Ford Motor Co’s Volvo Cars unit in an alliance with an unnamed investment partner, a company spokesman confirmed yesterday.
Geely, based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, is among several Chinese automakers that reportedly have shown interest in the Swedish automaker, though company officials had earlier denied such reports.
Gui Shengyue (桂生悅), chief executive of Geely Automobile Holdings (吉利汽車控股), the automaker’s Hong Kong-listed entity, told reporters on Tuesday that Geely could team up with a state-owned Chinese investment company to make a bid for Volvo.
Speaking at a briefing in Hong Kong on Geely’s first-half earnings report, Gui said Geely’s parent company, rather than its listed unit, could bid for Volvo.
“Geely is an ambitious company and given current global changes, we really cannot miss out on this move,” the financial magazine Caijing quoted Gui as saying.
Since more than 90 percent of Geely’s capital is tied up in its listed company, the parent company lacks the wherewithal to manage the acquisition by itself, Gui said. But the company would join with either a government entity or some other institutional investor, Caijing quoted him as saying.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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