How a Chinese upstart ended up owning Volvo, Lotus and London's black cabs
In 2010 a privately held Chinese carmaker bought Volvo Cars from Ford for 1.8 billion dollars. Its parent, Geely Holding, has since collected Lotus, the maker of London's black taxis, a stake in Aston Martin and even a flying car company. The Volvo deal helped rescue the Swedish brand.
Zhejiang Geely Holding, based in Hangzhou, was set up in 2003 as the holding company above the carmaker Li Shufu founded in 1986. By 2023 it ranked 225th on the Fortune Global 500, and in 2025 it built 4.1 million vehicles worldwide, 2.3 million of them plug-in electric. Its motorcycle arm includes the Italian name Benelli, and it co-owns an engine venture with Renault.
The shopping spree began modestly. In 2006 Geely took nearly a fifth of Manganese Bronze, maker of the London taxi, and set up a venture to build cabs in China. When the British firm collapsed into administration, Geely bought it outright in 2013 for £11.04 million and turned it into the London Electric Vehicle Company. An Australian gearbox maker bought in 2009 proved less happy and was largely sold off in 2014.
Volvo was the prize. Ford put it up for sale in December 2008 amid heavy losses and chose Geely's holding company as preferred buyer the following October. The deal was signed on 28 March 2010. Given room to operate independently, Volvo developed new smaller engines and a new platform, and its annual sales passed 500,000 for the first time in 2015 and topped 700,000 in 2023. A proposed merger with Geely was dropped, and a slice of Volvo shares was floated in Stockholm in 2021.
More deals followed. In 2017 Geely bought a controlling stake in Lotus, along with nearly half of Malaysia's Proton, and acquired the American flying car firm Terrafugia. That year Polestar, formerly Volvo's performance arm, became a separate electric brand, later listed on Nasdaq, and the group invested €3.25 billion in the truck maker Volvo Group. The premium electric brand Zeekr launched in 2021, and its New York listing in 2024 raised about $441 million, the largest by a Chinese firm since 2021.
Source: Geely
