China Car Times

After buying Volvo, Geely have their sights set on another company: Aston Martin. According to reports originating from auto.sohu.com, Geely have already been deep in talks with Aston Martin regarding a potential buyout of the company.

Aston Martin was sold to Ford in 1987 and was then sold onto a Kuwaiti company, Investment Dar Inc, for 925 million USD in 2007. The Kuwaiti company are apparently trying to reorganize its debt and are seeking to sell its 64% share in Aston Martin for 800 million USD, with Geely and Toyota both interested in taking on the company.

Earlier reports from Bloomberg indicated that bidding for the 64% stake had not yet reached the original asking price but a London based private equity house Investindustrial has made a bid of circa 401 million USD for the company but was later trumped by Mahindra & Mahindra’s higher bid.

As well as Geely, Toyota are also reportedly deeply interested in taking on the Aston Martin brand with Toyota having multiple meetings with Aston Martin over the past few weeks, auto.sohu.com are confident that Aston Martin bidding will come down to two players, Toyota and Geely, with no mention of the Indian company as of yet.

Auto.Sohu’s sources indicated that Geely are prepared to use the ‘Volvo Method‘ to buy in Aston Martin. Geely has apparently garnered the support of local governments in bringing in capital to potentially buy Aston Martin as they did when they bought Volvo, Geely put forward around 300 million USD of its own money to buy Volvo and relied on cities such as Shanghai, Chengdu and Daqing to invest in the project with total investment reaching just under 2 billion USD, in return Volvo would then reinvest in their locales with new factories. Geely’s CEO, Li Shu Fu is also no stranger to Aston Martin as he bought his own daughter a model when she married her husband in 2011.

Update: Our sources tell us there is a second Chinese company involved, but no names have been dropped as of yet. Keep watching for updates.