{"id":125337,"date":"2018-04-17T10:21:42","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T14:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=125337"},"modified":"2018-04-17T10:22:49","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T14:22:49","slug":"geelys-li-shufu-says-partnerships-key-to-auto-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2018\/04\/geelys-li-shufu-says-partnerships-key-to-auto-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Geely’s Li Shufu Says Partnerships Key to Auto Success"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Geely Chairman Li Khufu purchased 9.7% of Daimler AG for $9.2 billion.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Geely owner Li Shufu urged Daimler AG, in which he recently became one of the largest shareholders,\u00a0to consider further strategic partnerships.<\/p>\n

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Global News!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Li Shufu, who is also the owner of Volvo, recently became a major shareholder of Daimler after acquiring a 9.69 % stake in the Stuttgart-based company.<\/p>\n

In an opinion piece written for German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Li said that traditional carmakers could only survive far-reaching structural change in the automotive industry through enhanced cooperation.<\/p>\n

“We must actively assess the possibility of comprehensive alliances, instead of hiding from reality by sticking our heads in the sand,” Li wrote. He added that “any legally-feasible bilateral and multilateral cooperation of mutual benefit” needed to be “discussed.”<\/p>\n

(Geely Chairman<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0shaking up auto industry. <\/em>Click Here<\/a><\/span>\u00a0for the story.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The opinion piece was widely interpreted by the German media as a sign that the new Daimler shareholder would play an active role in shaping the company’s future. Earlier, Li already added Volvo to his portfolio of vehicle brands and helped the struggling Swedish carmaker achieve a commercial turn-around.<\/p>\n

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Daimler AG's Dieter Zetsche discusses the company's future during its annual shareholders meeting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Li said, according to the Chinese Xinhua News Agency, carmakers willing to face significant challenges, such as a need to pivot to self-driving and electric-powered technologies, could still benefit in the long-run. Companies “ready to unite to create digital platforms,” which can be used cooperatively by their diverse brands, would have a “recipe for success” in a “more and more embattled industry.”<\/p>\n

He also emphasized the current transition phase would be a critical juncture for carmakers as they struggled to juggle competing goals of profitability and sustainability. Nevertheless, he expressed optimism that it would be possible to “use global economies of scale and reduce risks” on the one hand, while ensuring the “independence of brands” and “autonomy of management” on the other.<\/p>\n

Carmakers need to \u201cwake up\u201d to make the switch to a business model based more on sharing technology to generate acceptable returns in future.\u00a0\u201cThose companies sticking to silos will be swallowed up by the few remaining giants,\u201d Li said. \u201cThose who\u2019ll bundle their shared strengths will win out in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

(<\/em>Click Here<\/a><\/span>\u00a0for more about Geely’s founder buying 9.7% of Daimler AG.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Companies could keep increasing dividends, as Daimler just did\u00a0to shareholders in parallel to creating greater product differentiation and respecting intellectual property rights.<\/p>\n

Since it was founded by Li in 1986, Geely Automobiles has grown into one of the leading carmakers in China and its continued growth could make it one of the largest in the world, Besides Volvo, it has also taken control of the British engineering firm Lotus and the London Taxi\u00a0Co., which is building electric taxis.<\/p>\n

Last month, Li unveiled\u00a0of plans to start making his Lynk & Co. mid-market brand in Europe next year, the first Chinese vehicles to be built outside their home market. Lynk, which started sales in China last year, will produce the 01 sport-utility vehicle at Volvo\u2019s plant in Ghent, Belgium.<\/p>\n

Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said earlier this month the investment of Li as a positive development. \u201cI\u2019d like to start by saying our talks with Li Shufu have been very positive\u201d Zetsche said. \u201cHe wants to have a long-term investment with Daimler and he supports our successful strategy,\u201d said Zetsche, future collaboration with Li Shufu\u2019s automotive empire, which includes Geely, the Chinese company he founded, and Volvo.<\/p>\n

(To see more\u00a0about Daimler AG’s CEO Zetsche’s talks about future with new investor, <\/em>Click Here<\/a><\/span>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cChina is our most important market. In our future discussions of the automobile business in China, we will be able to include our biggest shareholder. We will also explore the question of whether there are additional opportunities cooperation,\u201d Zetsche told the estimated 6,000 shareholders gathered for the meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geely owner penned an opinion piece for a German newspaper espousing his theory on success, which is to say more strategic partnerships. Li, who purchased nearly 10% of Daimler AG’s stock recently, said companies that eschew partners are likely to be gobbled up. For more, go to TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20009,"featured_media":26843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"make":[48,60],"post-state":[],"category_old":[286,150,123,287,256,289,240,169,132,284,139,290,278,288],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20009"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125337"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=125337"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=125337"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=125337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}