Renault SA, France’s second-largest carmaker, and Nissan Motor Co. are in talks with Troika Dialog about buying its stake in the Russian carmaker OAO AvtoVAZ, Renault Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn told Russia Today.
“We are planning to buy Troika’s stake in AvtoVAZ and we are in talks about this,” Ghosn said in an interview yesterday with the television station.
Troika, the Moscow brokerage, Renault and Russian Technologies, a state holding company, each currently own 25 percent plus one share of AvtoVAZ, the maker of Lada cars. Renault agreed to pay $1 billion for its stake in the Russian carmaker in December 2007.
Renault, along with Nissan, its Japanese affiliate, has been planning to assemble a new line of models for the Russian market at the AvtoVAZ plant in Togliatti, in the southern part of the country. Sylvie Blanchet, a spokeswoman for Renault, said in June that the company had no plans to raise its stake in the Russian carmaker.
“We’ve always said we’re very happy with our 25 percent stake, and we continue to be happy with it,” Blanchet said on June 30.
Oleg Lobanov, vice president for finance at AvtoVAZ, said Oct. 26 that the carmaker expects net income of 1 billion rubles ($32.6 million) in 2010 under Russian accounting standards. AvtoVAZ had nine-month net income of 622 million rubles under Russian standards, he said.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in June that Russia could acquire part of the French government’s 15 percent stake in Renault if the carmaker decided to increase its holding in AvtoVAZ.
“We’ve discussed it recently,” Putin said. “It would be an interesting, very powerful cooperation.”
