Lotus: Proton sale "changes nothing"

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1 min read

17 January 2012

The sale of Proton by the Malaysian government "changes nothing" for Lotus, which is owned by the struggling carmaker.

An official statement issued by Lotus this morning said: "As far as we are aware, this situation changes nothing for Lotus, Proton's support in our development remains very strong and our focus, as always, is on the delivery of the business plan."

Malaysia’s state-owned investment firm yesterday sold its stake in Proton in a deal worth $410m.

Khazanah Nasional sold its 42.7 per cent stake in Proton Holdings to car distributor and importer DRB-Hicom and expects to complete the deal by the second quarter of the year.

DRB-Hicom builds and distributes Mercedes and Volkswagen models, and has eight assembly plants, four of which are for cars. The deal gives DRB control of two plants in Malaysia with a combined capacity of 350,000 units per year.

Stuart Milne

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TStag 16 January 2012

Re: Malaysian government sells Proton

I bet VW buy them and make them part of Seat. And I bet the baby Porsche finds it's way to Norfolk.

gussy51 16 January 2012

matsoc wrote:
gussy51 wrote:
(though I suspect Lotus has already been sold separately)
Yes, I think that Lotus future has been decided at the end of last year...but who is going to buy it? I have no idea...

Various rumours from F1 circles suggest Genii Capital who own the Lotus (formerly Renault) F1 team were trying to put together a consortium to buy it. They were once linked to Saab so its possible that they have decent sums of money, and some of the new product like the Esprit is nearly developed so may not cost much more to finish.

Ravon 16 January 2012

Am I being dumb, or does this mean the whole of Proton was sold for less than the sum of money that they were supposed to be pumping into Lotus ?

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Lotus: Proton sale "changes nothing"