Geely chairman tells Autocar that the deal to buy Volvo from Ford will be completed soon

Volvo insiders expect their company to be sold to Chinese firm Geely by the end of March.

The Chinese are believed to be keen to complete the deal by Chinese New Year in February, but our sources told us the deal isn’t likely to be completed that soon.

Geely chairman and founder Li Shufu, the world’s 300th richest man, is believed to want to keep the firm’s existing technology and design centre in Gothenburg open, but also establish another in China.

This centre is is likely to be established in Shanghai under the leadership of Volvo design boss Peter Horbury, from whom Li has already received assurances that he will stay with the company.

Li is understood to have a vision of a Volvo company building a million cars a year in Gothenburg and a new Chinese facility, well over double its current volume.

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Steve Cropley

Steve Cropley Autocar
Title: Editor-in-chief

Steve Cropley is the oldest of Autocar’s editorial team, or the most experienced if you want to be polite about it. He joined over 30 years ago, and has driven many cars and interviewed many people in half a century in the business. 

Cropley, who regards himself as the magazine’s “long stop”, has seen many changes since Autocar was a print-only affair, but claims that in such a fast moving environment he has little appetite for looking back. 

He has been surprised and delighted by the generous reception afforded the My Week In Cars podcast he makes with long suffering colleague Matt Prior, and calls it the most enjoyable part of his working week.

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WooDz 11 January 2010

Re: Volvo 'to be Geely's by March'

See if you really want to sell something you will.
GM please take note. It doesn't require months of endless jerking off, pissing other companies and government bodies off and then just pull the plug in the end????