Trade News

MUNICH -- The owners of Hella will pick a buyer for their majority stake this weekend, the German automotive lighting group said on Thursday.

A person familiar with the matter said Hella had received binding offers from three bidders -- French suppliers Faurecia and Plastic Omnium, and Germany's Mahle.

All three offers are at the expected level of around 60 euros ($70) per share, the person said.

That price, based on the three-month average of Hella's share price, values the group at about 7 billion euros ($8.2 billion). The stock closed at 64.50 euros on Wednesday and fell 2.6 percent to 62.86 euros on Thursday's news of the offers.

Hella's founding family, which is seeking a buyer for its 60 percent stake, is working with investment bank Rothschild on the transaction, sources told Reuters earlier this week.

Under German takeover rules, buying a 60 percent stake in Hella would trigger a takeover bid for the remaining shares.

Hella s…

Vroom reported strong revenue and vehicle sales growth in the second quarter along with a higher net loss as the online used-vehicle retailer continued to expand in the U.S.

The net loss widened 4.1 percent to $65.8 million. The loss included $22.6 million in one-time, IPO-related costs. Vroom went public in June 2020.

Shares of Vroom fell 19 percent to $30.66 in afternoon trading Thursday in New York.

Vroom was able to grow its salable inventory throughout the period, going from 11,280 vehicles listed at the end of the first quarter to 13,676 at the end of the second, the company said on a conference call Wednesday after releasing its report.

CEO Paul Hennessy said the company was able to grow those units in a "very constrained market" while improving unit economics, and he pointed to the firm's acquisition of data analytics firm CarStory as having played a role in the operational improvements. "Our now combined data-driven team is buying the rig…

McKinsey & Co. Senior Partner Hans-Werner Kaas discusses how the auto industry can boost productivity through manufacturing and software innovation.

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DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. is preparing to inform Mustang Mach-E customers that the global semiconductor shortage will delay some vehicle deliveries by a minimum of six weeks.

An early version of a letter to customers leaked this week on a Mach-E forum. A Ford spokeswoman on Wednesday said the letter is not yet final and will go out in the coming days, but she did confirm the delay time frame.

Mach-E production at Ford's Cuautitlan, Mexico, assembly plant will continue; the delay concerns vehicles that have already been built and are awaiting chips.

"The global semiconductor shortage continues to affect global automakers and other industries in all parts of the world," Ford said in a statement. "We are working closely with all of our key suppliers to address production constraints tied to this global semiconductor shortage so we can continue to build Mach-E vehicles, and get them to our customers as quickly as we can."

The automaker has been plagued…

LMP Automotive Holdings Inc. has agreed to purchase a Kia dealership in New York as its franchised dealership buying spree continues.

The deal for Yonkers Kia in Yonkers, N.Y., was announced on Monday and is expected to close in the fourth quarter. LMP entered into an asset purchase agreement with seller Harrison Gray of Respect Auto Group on Aug. 5 to buy the dealership for $14 million, according to a regulatory filing.

Up to $5 million of that $14 million could be paid in shares of LMP stock while the rest would be paid in cash and debt financing, LMP said.

LMP said the Kia dealership is expected to add $82 million in annual revenue to the company.

"This acquisition will further expand our Northeast footprint," LMP COO Richard Aldahan said in a statement.

LMP said the acquisition is subject to certain conditions such as approval from Kia America.

Yonkers Kia is the latest planned acquisition for the small public auto retailer that …

The dealer principal of Tate's Auto Group — accused in 2018 of deceiving predominantly Native American car buyers at his dealerships and falsifying information on their vehicle financing applications — resolved the issue last month with a $450,000 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

The federal agency originally had pursued a $7 million settlement, which failed to materialize following the dealership group's bankruptcy proceedings last year. However, if the dealership group had the $7 million, the agency argues it couldn't have recovered the money for impacted consumers because of a recent Supreme Court decision that limits the FTC's powers to seek monetary relief from companies.

The FTC initially settled with Richard Berry, owner and manager of Tate's, and group President Linda Tate for the $7 million figure in September 2020, according to a press release. Tate had locations in Arizona and New Mexico, on the fringes of the Navajo Nation reservation.…

Aichi Automobile Co., an electric-vehicle startup better known as Aiways, is exploring a U.S. initial public offering that could occur as soon as this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The Shanghai-based company is working with underwriters ahead of a listing in which it could raise about $300 million, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing information that isn’t public.

An Aiways representative declined to comment.

The company, which has its European headquarters in Munich, was seeking funding from investors including ride-hailing giant Didi Global Inc. to fuel its global expansion in a transaction that may have valued Aiways at more than $2 billion, Bloomberg News reported in January.

Founded in 2017 by Chinese entrepreneurs Samuel Fu and Gary Gu, the startup has a manufacturing base in Shangrao, China, and has an initial production capacity of 150,000 cars a year. The automaker’s midsize crossover, know…

Autonomous driving startup Pony.ai has put on hold plans to go public in New York through a merger with a blank-check firm at a $12 billion valuation, after it failed to gain assurances from Beijing that it would not become a target of a crackdown against Chinese technology companies, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The decision makes Pony.ai one of the biggest companies to suspend its U.S. listing plans after China banned ride-sharing giant Didi Global Inc. from signing up new users just days after its blockbuster IPO in June.

It followed up with crackdowns on other Chinese technology firms over concerns about the safety of user data, which led to some companies, such as LinkDoc Technology LDOC.O and Hello Inc, scrapping their U.S. listing plans.

The Toyota Motor Corp.-backed startup will now seek to raise money in a private fundraising round at a valuation of $12 billion, said the sources, who requested anonymity because the matter is con…

Carvana is barred from selling autos in Wake County, N.C., until late January for violating motor vehicle dealer licensing laws in the state.

The state attorney's office said in a settlement agreement with Carvana that the online-based retailer failed to deliver title work in a timely manner, issued out-of-state, temporary tags for a vehicle sold in North Carolina and offered a vehicle for sale without a state inspection.

CBS 17 reported that the move followed a consumer complaint and investigation. The agreement was struck in an appeal by Carvana.

For 180 days beginning Aug. 2, Carvana can't sell cars and trucks from its Raleigh location, where the state said the violations took place. Any vehicles at that location during the suspension period will have to be clearly labeled "Not For Sale," the agreement says.

Employees at the Raleigh location are still allowed to process title and vehicle registration paperwork from Carvana's three other license…

Nearly 9 out of 10 GM Financial lease customers opted to purchase their leases rather than pay a premium on a new vehicle or wait for dealers to restock their inventory, GM Financial said last week.

Only 11 percent of customers with expiring leases in the second quarter returned their vehicles to GM Financial when their contracts expired. The remaining 89 percent either purchased their vehicles at the contract price, or the grounding dealer bought the vehicle.

The contract value is generally lower than today's wholesale prices as the inventory shortage continues to result in high used-vehicle values.

GM Financial remarketed only 32,900 vehicles in the second quarter, down more than 60 percent from a year earlier, said CEO Dan Berce.

Despite a chunk of missed profit as the lender lost the chance to remarket many off-lease vehicles at auction, net income for General Motors' captive surged to $1.2 billion, compared with $173 million a year earlier, …