Volvo Cars has announced it will be acquiring additional shares in Polestar which will increase its shareholding to 49.5 percent.
Volvo owned 50 per cent of Polestar until a private placement diluted its original shareholding earlier in April 2021.
It’s not clear if Polestar is still considering an IPO, reports of which surfaced in June 2021, or if the new investment from Volvo has put an end to those plans.
The company is acquiring its additional stake through PSD Investment, the private investment company of Li Shufu.
Li is the chairman of both Volvo Cars and its Chinese parent Zhejiang Geely Holding Group. PSD Investment will remain Polestar’s second largest shareholder.
Polestar 2
Volvo says it has no plans to further increase its stake in the electric car company at this time or consolidate it.
Geely acquired Volvo in 2010 and has owned it ever since.
In 2013 Volvo Cars began production at its first Chinese manufacturing plant and has since opened a plant in South Carolina, while Polestar production will also expand to the US with the upcoming Polestar 3 EV performance SUV.
The Polestar brand has been confirmed for Australia, with the Tesla Model 3-rivalling Polestar 2 set to arrive in November 2021.
It produces outputs of 300kW and 660Nm.
Polestar began in 1996 under the banner of Flash Engineering who tuned standard Volvos for competitive touring car racing.
The brand was then renamed Polestar Racing and had two divisions, one for racing and the other for performance road cars.
The brand first came out with the wild C30 Polestar concept which featured Volvo’s turbocharged five-cylinder engine with 335kW, all-wheel drive and a manual gearbox.
Unfortunately, being a concept, the powerful C30 never made it to production.
Some Polestar projects managed to make their way both into production and Down Under, specifically the S60 Polestar which was fitted with a turbocharged 3.0-litre inline-six engine, all-wheel drive and 260kW of power.
The V60 also got Polestar treatment and was sold globally but was only produced in relatively small numbers.
Polestar announced it would make a shift to producing electric cars only in June 2017.
