Volvo and Geely planning to merge in to a single business

Geely and Volvo are panning to merge their separate businesses in to one entity to create a stronger global group whilst keeping individual identities.

It’s a decade since Geely bought Volvo from Ford, and in that time it has turned Volvo from an ‘Almost’ premium car maker to a proper force in the ‘Premium’ market.

Rather than trying to copy the German Premium brands, Volvo has been allowed to develop its own take on Premium, with Geely’s money funding the development of what is now a world-class range of cars at Volvo, with Volvo SUVs – in particular – a real winner for the Swedes.

Until now, despite Geely’s investment, Volvo and Geely have been separate companies, although as costs weigh heavily on a rapidly changing industry Volvo and Geely, along with Lotus, Proton, LEVC, Polestar and Lynk & Co, are jointly developing ICE engines to cut costs.

But now Volvo and Geely are planning to go further, merging their two companies to form one global car company – or at least that’s the plan subject to board approval at Geely and Volvo.

Geely and Volvo say the joint company “would have the scale, knowledge and resources to be a leader in the ongoing transformation of the automotive industry“, and the new combined company would have access to the global capital market through Hong Kong and a subsequent listing in Stockholm too.

If you’re going to merge, probably best to merge ‘in-house’.