Beijing Auto expresses interest in Volvo

Shanghai, June 11 (Gasgoo.com) Beijing Automobile Industries Holding Co., China's fifth-largest carmaker, has expressed an interest in buying Ford's Volvo unit, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Chinese government-owned Beijing Auto, which failed in a bid last month for General Motors Corp.'s Opel business in Europe, is expected to send a group of executives as early as Thursday to Volvo's headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden and tour its R&D and manufacturing facilities, the report quotes informed sources as saying.

There are three or four interested parties left now for Volvo and one of them is an investment group led by Chinese auto company Geely Holding and its chairman, Li Shufu, said the sources,

However, the sources said it is still unclear how serious Beijing Auto is about Volvo as it is a late bidder.

Chinese automaker Geely Auto has denied it is bidding for Volvo or General Motors' Saab unit.

Geely said in a notice to the Hong Kong stock exchange in mid-May that "the company has not submitted, and has no plans to submit, any bids concerning the takeovers of 'Volvo' or 'Saab' as stated in recent press articles."

Beijing Auto, which makes Mercedes-Benz cars in a joint venture with Daimler, reported 70.3 billion yuan ($10.3 billion) in sales of 780,000 units last year.

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