Are Proton about to sell Lotus?
It was always difficult to see any sort of synergy between budget car maker Proton and Lotus. But that didn’t stop the Malaysian firm buying Lotus Group International (LGI) in 1996. But despite Proton’s best efforts – and Dany Bahar’s grandiose plans for Lotus – Lotus hasn’t made a profit for its owners in the last fifteen years.
Now it seems everything is starting to point to Lotus being put up for sale. Analysts are advising Proton to divest itself of Lotus – especially with Proton likely to be sold off from State control – and the rumours that Lotus could be for sale saw Proton stock rise by 44 per cent.
Added fuel for this speculation was provided by Khazanah Nasional – the investment holding arm of the Government of Malaysia – which confirmed they had received offers for Lotus. Khazanah didn’t go in to details, but it’s believed that both China’s SAIC and Luxembourg’s Genii Capital have been sniffing around an acquisition of Lotus.
All of which makes a lot os sense if Lotus is ever going to transform itself in to the East Anglian version of Aston Martin or Ferrari or whatever it is that’s in Dany Bahar’s plans. Lotus has survived in recent years by selling its technology, rather than its cars, and it needs to increase its sales four-fold from its current level of around 2,000 cars to have any chance of survival.
The plan Dany Bahar has for Lotus – with a whole new range of Lotus supercars – is probably the only way forward for Lotus, but they are going to need a new owner with very deep pockets to make the new Lotus a reality.
Something the Chinese are probably odds-on to provide.
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