“TIMELINE: China car makers eye global brands - Reuters” plus 4 more

TIMELINE: China car makers eye global brands - Reuters
Chinese car maker BYD aiming to zoom past Toyota - Columbus Telegram
Sonic Automotive Prices Concurrent Offerings of Class A Common Stock ... - Earthtimes
Missed opportunity: Boston-Power picks overseas over Milwaukee - Milwaukee Business Journal
Pros Say - CNBC

TIMELINE: China car makers eye global brands - Reuters

Posted: 17 Sep 2009 03:45 AM PDT

(Reuters) - Geely Automotive, the Chinese carmaker whose parent is eyeing Ford's Volvo unit, has approached Canadian auto parts maker Magna International about possibly taking a stake in Opel, a source said.

Major Chinese automakers, including Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp, have attempted overseas acquisitions in recent years with mixed results. Chery Automobile, Hunan Changfeng Motors Co and others have had initial talks with European or U.S. automakers but made no firm commitments.

Following is a TIMELINE tracing some proposed, failed or ongoing deals reported this year:

March 18 - Beijing Automotive is said to be seeking to buy U.S. auto parts maker Delphi Corp's non-core assets, 21st Century Business Herald reports.

June 3 - Little-known heavy machinery maker Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery unveils tentative deal to buy GM's Hummer.

June 11 - Beijing Auto is interested in buying Ford's Volvo car unit, Wall Street Journal reports.

July 6 - Italian auto maker Fiat agrees to a 50:50 joint venture deal with Guangzhou Automobile Industry Group Co Ltd to produce car engines in China.

July 23 - GM rejects Beijing Auto bid for its Opel brand, the Financial Times reports, in favor of continuing talks with rival bidders. Beijing Auto, the Chinese partner of Daimler AG and South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co, was said to be the highest bidder in the Opel auction.

Aug 1 - Beijing Auto will pay $103-$117 million for a 40 percent stake in Fujian Motor Industry Group's 50:50 commercial vehicle venture with Daimler in southeast China, an official newspaper says.

Aug 30 - Geely is the only firm bidder so far for Ford's Volvo unit, a Swedish business daily reports.

Sept 8 - SAIC Motor may take a passive stake in Saab Automobile by teaming up with luxury sports car maker Koenigsegg, a source says. SAIC, a GM China partner, is interested in buying into the Swedish carmaker.

Sept 9 - Geely says its parent wants to bid for Volvo. Its privately-held parent Geely Holding Group would seek full ownership of Volvo.

Sept 9 - Beijing Auto agrees to take a minority stake in Koenigsegg as part of the Swedish luxury carmaker's purchase of General Motor's Saab unit.

Sept 15 - Cash-strapped South Korean automaker Ssangyong Motor proposes a capital writedown that would slash the stake of SAIC, its majority Chinese shareholder.

Sept 15 - Volvo Car CEO Stephen Odell tells Swedish daily Dagens Industri that Geely had denied preparing a bid.

Sept 16 - Geely shares suspended pending bond/warrant announcement. China Business News says Geely plans to issue convertible bonds and warrants worth $250 million, and cites a Geely executive as saying this is not related to Volvo. Continued...

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Chinese car maker BYD aiming to zoom past Toyota - Columbus Telegram

Posted: 17 Sep 2009 05:14 PM PDT

Fast-growing Chinese battery and automaker BYD Co. is thinking big _ really big. It aims to overtake Toyota Motor Co. to become the global auto leader in under two decades, company officials say.

"It's our company's long-term target, to be China's No. 1 automaker by 2015 and to be the world's leading car maker by 2025," Jasmine Huang, a senior marketing representative for BYD, said in a phone interview Thursday.

"So far, our sales come mainly from domestic demand, but we are also thinking of expanding to overseas markets," Huang said, confirming similar comments by another BYD executive, deputy general manager Wang Jianjun, to the state-run newspaper China Daily.

Like other up-and-coming Chinese automakers, BYD has set its sights on breaking into major markets such as the U.S. and Europe. Although it started out building conventional cars, late last year it became the first automaker to launch mass production of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, that can be charged off a standard home outlet.

Whether BYD will succeed in meeting stringent U.S. and European standards for safety and quality, as well as customer expectations for comfort and performance, remains to be seen.

Chinese automakers remain reliant on mostly foreign technology and design and are still nowhere close to meeting finicky Western and Japanese standards, but they are catching up, analysts say. China's auto industry earlier this year overtook the U.S. in market size.

BYD's goal of becoming the global auto leader is realistic because explosive growth in Asia, its primary market, will continue, said Aaron Bragman, an auto industry analyst with the consulting firm IHS Global Insight in Ann Arbor, Mich..

But reaching that goal could come at GM's expense, although there likely will be so much sales growth that most automakers will see sales gains, Bragman said. GM is the sales leader in China.

But BYD, he said, won't be satisfied with growing only in Asia. It could also look at breaking into U.S. and European car markets. Making that leap, though, will require standout products, perhaps powered by its battery technology.

BYD would have to enter the U.S. through small and midsize car markets, and that could potentially hurt Honda and Toyota, which are strong in those segments, Bragman said. In midsize cars, Toyota and Honda have the two top U.S. sellers with the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord.

BYD might initially launch exports of a limited number of vehicles, just for the sake of its marketing and branding, says Scott Laprise, an industry analyst at CLSA.

"It's all about advertising and brand building," Laprise said. "That's going to be massive publicity. Don't sell anyone cars. Just let the world know you are the world leaders and then see what happens."

BYD was founded in 1995 and only branched into automaking in recent years. But it has won backing from billionaire investor Warren Buffett, whose MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., the utility division of his Omaha, Neb.-based flagship Berkshire Hathaway, has a 9.9 percent stake in the Hong Kong-traded company.

BYD, which stands for Build Your Dreams, recently announced it has approval to get its shares listed in the southern city of Shenzhen, where the company is based.

In Jan.-August it sold 246,881 cars, just ahead of rival domestic automaker Chery Automobile Co, which reported sales totaling 240,275 units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Its most popular car, the F3 sedan has been China's top selling model for three months so far this year.

But General Motors Corp. led sales in China in the first half of the year at 814,442 units, followed by Volkswagen AG, with 652,436 vehicles sold.

Toyota, which displaced GM as the world's biggest automaker in 2008, sold nearly 9 million cars and trucks in 2008, while GM sold 8.4 million.

BYD expects to sell 400,000 cars this year and to manage annual sales exceeding 10 million by 2025, Wang, the deputy general manager, told the China Daily.

Company chairman Wang Chuanfu has said he plans to begin selling an all-electric vehicle in the United States by next year.

AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.

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Sonic Automotive Prices Concurrent Offerings of Class A Common Stock ... - Earthtimes

Posted: 17 Sep 2009 08:27 PM PDT

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Missed opportunity: Boston-Power picks overseas over Milwaukee - Milwaukee Business Journal

Posted: 17 Sep 2009 11:12 PM PDT

An effort to entice a Massachusetts battery manufacturer to open a factory in Milwaukee is dead.

A group of elected officials and business leaders in Milwaukee was working to bring Boston-Power Inc., a manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries, to Milwaukee for its first domestic plant.

Earlier this year, Milwaukee Ald. Tony Zielinski introduced a resolution to have the city allocate $1 million to $20 million for a factory for Westborough, Mass.-based Boston-Power. Funding from Milwaukee never materialized, leaving Boston-Power to look elsewhere to locate its domestic factory, Zielinski said.

"It's dead now," he said of the deal. "It's so incredibly frustrating."

Luring Boston-Power to Milwaukee would have made the city a leader in the development of lithium-ion technology, he said. Boston-Power makes lithium-ion batteries for laptop computers, personal digital assistants, mobile telephones and other portable devices. The company plans to develop lithium-ion battery sets for the automotive and transportation sectors.

Chris Carleton, a spokesman for Boston-Power, said the company is likely to expand its operations overseas and forgo a domestic factory altogether at this time. Boston-Power's lithium-ion batteries currently are produced at factories in Taiwan and mainland China.

"We had a cordial response from Milwaukee," Carleton said.

After weighing a pitch from Milwaukee, Boston-Power, which was founded in 2005, decided to locate a 500,000-square-foot U.S. factory in Massachusetts to be closer to Boston-Power's corporate headquarters and research and development center, Carleton said.

However, a decision to build a plant in the United States hinged on the receipt of federal stimulus funds, he said. When the company's proposal failed to generate any funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Boston-Power opted to expand production outside the country, Carleton added.

"Absent federal stimulus funding, it made more sense to expand outside the United States," Carleton said. "We look at this as a missed opportunity."

The federal government announced in August which companies would receive federal stimulus funds through grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Glendale-based Johnson Controls Inc. was awarded $299 million for lithium-ion vehicle battery production.

Boston-Power's interest in locating a plant in Milwaukee had stemmed, in part, from the area's manufacturing heritage and that it's Johnson Controls' home base.

Making the pitch

Zielinski said he first had contact with Boston-Power in July 2008. He and other city officials traveled to the Boston area last fall to meet with company management, he said. Representatives of Milwaukee 7, an economic development group for the seven counties in southeast Wisconsin, were involved in talks with Boston-Power.

Carleton acknowledged that several meetings between Milwaukee officials and Boston-Power took place.

Had local and state officials moved quicker to work to get a deal with Boston-Power, it may have had a better chance at securing stimulus funds, Zielinski said.

"If we would have sealed the deal (with Boston-Power), we would have been on track for stimulus money," he said.

Zielinski said the city should have focused on approving funding for Boston-Power instead of approving a taxpayer-financed plan to redevelop a large portion of the former Tower Automotive site, on the city's north side.

The Milwaukee Common Council voted Sept. 1 to approve a $35 million redevelopment plan for the former Tower Automotive site, including the creation of a 60-acre business park. The plan includes more than $25 million in city funds, with the remaining $9 million coming through state and federal grants, and tax credits.

Zielinski voted against the proposal. He argued that demolition and cleanup work should be conducted in stages only as developers come forward with specific proposals.

Department of City Development commissioner Rocky Marcoux, who declined to discuss Boston-Power, said the entire Tower Automotive site needs to be redeveloped and environmental issues addressed before any businesses would be interested in locating there.

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Pros Say - CNBC

Posted: 17 Sep 2009 09:53 PM PDT

Expect 11% Upside From This Dow Component: Analyst

3M has soared almost 80 percent since the March market low, and recently hit its 52-week high. Where's the stock headed? Deane Dray, senior diversified industrials analyst at FBR Capital Markets, shared his views on the company.

"We think 3M is still uniquely positioned in this market as a defensive, early cycle," Dray told CNBC. "It's trading even with the multi-industry group. We see at least an 11 percent upside from here by the way they're positioned."

Dray has an "outperform" rating on 3M and said the company has a good revenue mix of early cycle, automotive and defensive exposures.

"A third of the business is considered early cycle, 15 percent of the business is consumer and beyond that, they've got 12 percent in automotive," he said. "If you roll that up, those are the kinds of businesses that are most levered to early stages of an economic recovery."

3M also has significant international exposure that will further benefit the company's revenue.

"They're gaining greater share in China and emerging markets," he said. "So with the weaker dollar, they have the ability to prosper there."