China’s Beijing Automotive Group, the owner of the BAIC brand, announced last Thursday that it wants to buy a mid to high-end brand in Europe or the United States in order to increase its global presence. State-owned BAIC, which is also Daimler AG’s partner in China, said it has already thought of a few candidates.
While Beijing Automotive’s desire to buy an European brand is not new, the automaker said the search has extended to the United States. Dong Haiyang, head of Beijing Automotive’s international expansion, said the decision to buy a foreign brand is a shortcut on the company’s road to become global, as breaking into global markets with its relatively unknown BAIC nameplate will take time.
“We have candidates,” Dong was quoted as saying at a media briefing in Beijing, according to Reuters. The Chinese carmaker has accelerated expansion in recent months both home and abroad to better compete with rivals including Dongfeng, SAIC Motor Corp and FAW Group.
In June 2013, Beijing Automotive set up an international unit to accelerate international expansion. Last year the company bought two small Chinese rivals and last week signed an agreement with Daimler to jointly invest €4 billion ($5.51 billion) into their China joint venture to double car production by 2015.
The poor health of some European and U.S. carmakers offer good buying opportunities for Chinese automakers, with the most recent acquisitions being Dongfeng’s purchase of 14 percent of PSA Peugeot Citroen and Zhejiang Geely’s buyout of British EV startup Emerald Automotive.
So which brands do you think Beijing Automotive should be/is targeting? A couple that come to mind are Lincoln from the U.S. and Lancia from Europe.
By Dan Mihalascu
PHOTO GALLERY
