Volvo News
Volvo Sold To Geely? Unconfirmed Report Says Yes, Volvo Says No (Official Statement Inside)
By
Jun 17, 2009, 06:47

If ChinaCarTimes.com is to be believed, Ford has sold Volvo to Chinese automaker Geely, the country's first independent car company, as well as the first Chinese company to step foot on the floors of the Detroit and Frankfurt auto shows. The sale price hasn't been disclosed and "the details are still sketchy," but the report claims that on top of the price, Geely plans to invest $10 billion US into the brand in the immediate future, a plan that includes building a new production line in the city of Dongguan in the Guangdong province of China. Supposedly, the company has already applied for both the land and a loan to begin work on the factory. Volvo currently has a joint venture agreement with Chang'an, and it's unknown what will happen to that deal if this sale goes through.

Of course, there are some holes in this unconfirmed claim, including the fact that not one single Swedish outlet has reported on this deal. As far as some the other questionable factors here, well, we'll just quote a comment made on the ChinaCarTimes article page:

"You can write this article off as a false rumor based on the fact that it claims that 1. Geely would move production line to China Swedespeed has a call in to Volvo's US PR department, and we'll update this story when we know more one way or the other. Here'a a link to the ChinaCarTimes story.

UPDATE: Here's the official statement we were given by James Hope, Volvo's US Product Communications Manager:

"An announcement related to the sale of Volvo Car Corp. would only come from Ford Motor Company. As of today, neither Ford Motor Company nor Volvo Car Corporation in Sweden has made any announcement regarding the sale of Volvo. Reports of such a sale by any media outlet are speculative and, therefore, are not accurate."

This isn't your typical, transparent, "we can neither confirm nor deny this statement" sort of reply. It sounds quite definitive to us. So for now, Volvo is still with Ford.

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