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Geely's Li Shufu gives the lowdown on Volvo deal

By Wen Ying: 0 Comments Print E-mail Chin.a.org.cn, August 6, 2010

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On July 6, the EU Commission approved the purchase of Volvo Cars by China's Geely Holding Group and Daqing State-owned Assets Management Co., Ltd. On Mar. 28 Geely's Chairman Li Shufu and Ford's CFO Lewis Booth attended a signing ceremony at Volvo's headquarters in Sweden's second largest city Goteborg. [Xinhua]

Reporter: Volvo's technology, brand and business methods now all belong to Geely, but this only amounts to formal ownership. What about Volvo's accumulated knowledge and vision?

Li: If it were not for the core technology, then we would have had no need to bargain and the negotiations would not have been so hard!

It may not be realistic to make Volvo truly a Chinese company, but without core elements like technology and the brand it would have been impossible. The gap between our automobile industry and that of the rest of the world will not be eliminated in less than 20 years. But we have the money, and acquisitions are the first step.

The second step is to transform the purchase into part of China's own core competency. We need to localize the production of Volvo cars; otherwise it will remain a purely financial investment. Only through localization can the standards of our researchers and technicians be improved and automobile spare part enterprises nurtured. But Volvo's technology is so sophisticated that what they research in their laboratories are cars that do not kill people and cars with zero emissions. The digestion of these things will not be achieved by my personal efforts, or Geely's efforts alone, but the efforts of the whole nation. So the layout of Volvo's production bases in China should be planned at a national level.

On Mar. 30, Geely's Chairman Li Shufu held a press conference in Beijing about the Volvo acquisition. [Xinhua]

In reference to the relationship between Geely and Volvo, what Geely needs is not to boast about the purchase but to genuinely acquire the essence of Volvo. Ford purchased Volvo but treated it as a "son", so the merger failed; Geely's approach is to treat Volvo as a "brother". In the future, Geely will consider making use of Volvo's technology to produce a mass market vehicle that does not require too much world-class technology, but we also need to maintain Volvo's world lead in technology.