Intercultural Business News

Chinese carmaker Geely, picked as the preferred bidder for Ford Motor’s Volvo unit, is seeking at least $1 billion in loans from Chinese banks to back its $1.8 billion bid.
Three major Chinese banks planned to jointly extend loans to Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, including Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Export-Import Bank of China had.

Bank of China is China’s top foreign exchange lender. China Construction Bank is the country’s No 1 property lender. Export-Import Bank of China is a policy lender wholly-owned by the Chinese government and directly led by the State Council.

Will This Be The New Logo For Volvo?

“Money is not a problem for Geely,” said an unidentified source. “They definitely have strong support from Chinese banks and there are a number of private equity funds queuing up to invest in Geely.”

The three Chinese banks mentioned above refused to comment on specific loans to clients.

Hangzhou-headquartered Geely, which means “lucky” in Chinese, is in need of modern and innovative technologies, which may be met by the Swedish brand, to upgrade its car lineup and tap the auto market.

Last month, Volvo’s union leaders held their first talks with Geely but were still waiting to see Geely’s financing plans for the loss-making Swedish carmaker.

Geely reached an agreement last week with Ford on intellectual property right (IPR) issues in its bid for Volvo, clearing a major barrier for the deal.

Read More>China Daily

In a stadium filled with pumping music and strobe lighting, hundreds of tech-savvy customers – many of whom had queued through the night – witnessed the official launch of the Apple iPhone in South Korea at the weekend.

The much-hyped launch underlined the continued appeal of the iPhone, as well as just how much domestic players such as Samsung Electronics will have to do to catch up in the smartphone market.

Apple’s flagship product – 60,000 units of which were pre-ordered for the weekend – was launched in South Korea following regulatory bickering that consumer lobbyists viewed as protectionism. They argued that Apple was being kept out of the market in order to safeguard the interests of Samsung, which is trailing behind Nokia and Apple in the smartphone market.

Will Samsung Lose Out With The iPhone Launch?

The battle for market share has become even more important because smartphones – mobile phones that double as mini-computers – offer the highest margins and fastest growth at a time when overall handset sales are shrinking.

Samsung has rapidly built global market share in conventional handsets to more than 20 per cent, making it second only to Nokia. But it holds just 4 per cent of the global smartphone market, against Nokia’s 35 per cent and the 17 per cent held by Apple.

Lee Young-hee, head of marketing at Samsung’s mobile division, says a counter-offensive on the smartphone front is imminent. “Next year, we will put our whole focus and strategy on smartphones,” Ms Lee says. “We are still fine-tuning, but will probably be the number one in delivering the biggest portfolio of smartphones to the market next year.”

Read More>Financial Times