30th Aug 2006 07:01
Inchcape PLC30 August 2006 30 August 2006 FURTHER SCALE EXPANSION IN HIGH GROWTH RUSSIAN MARKET Acquisition of 75.1% shareholding in Toyota/Lexus retail business in St Petersburg Inchcape plc, the international automotive retail group, today announces afurther significant expansion into the high growth Russian market throughreaching an agreement to acquire a majority stake in the Axel Car Toyota andLexus retail and service business in St Petersburg. Russia's car market is the largest in Central and Eastern Europe and isexperiencing rapid growth. In recent years foreign brands' share of overallsales in Russia have been increasing strongly with a 55% year on year increasein sales in the first six months of 2006 to 400,000 units. St Petersburg is the second largest metro market in Russia. Foreign brandregistrations in St Petersburg in the first six months of 2006 were 36,000representing 9% of all foreign brand sales in Russia for the period. Toyota is one of the most successful foreign brands in Russia with sales ofaround 40,000 units in the first six months of 2006 and a market share offoreign brand car sales of around 10%. Lexus sales were over 4,200, a marketshare of just over 1%. Axel Car is part of the Olimp Group, a leading dealer group in St Petersburgrepresenting a number of brands including Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep,Audi, Peugeot and Chery. Olimp has, through Axel Car, built a strong positionfor Toyota and Lexus in the city with two Toyota retail and service centres, oneLexus retail and service centre and one city centre showroom for Lexus. A new Russian company will be established to purchase the goodwill and assets ofAxel Car's Toyota/Lexus business, which will be owned 75.1% by Inchcape and 24.9% by the Axel Car shareholders. Inchcape will pay up to £38m from existing cashresources for its shareholding including related property. Completion of theacquisition is subject to approval of regulatory authorities in Russia. Andre Lacroix, Group Chief Executive of Inchcape, commented: "This acquisition provides an immediate entry into Russia with a successful andestablished business in the key growth market of St Petersburg. Together withthe previously announced joint venture with Independence in Moscow we now havetwo strong anchor points in Russia and are extremely well placed to build aprofitable scale business".- Evgeny Voytenkov, Chairman of Axel Car, commented: "Inchcape is one of the world's leading car retailers. We are excited to havethis excellent opportunity to build a partnership with a strong internationalgroup, which will further strengthen our position in the St Petersburg marketwith one of the most successful foreign brands in Russia." Notes to editors For further information, please contact: Group Communications, Inchcape plc020 7546 0022 Hogarth Partnership Limited (John Olsen / Barnaby Fry)020 7357 9477 Inchcape is a scale automotive retail group operating in Australia, Belgium,Greece, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK. The Group also has operations in anumber of other global markets. In addition to growing our core businesses, weare looking to develop scale operations in new and emerging regions. Werepresent leading automotive brands and operate either a retail, or a verticallyintegrated retail model (i.e. exclusive distribution and retail), depending onthe market. Our current key manufacturer partners are Toyota/Lexus, Subaru,BMW, the Premier Automotive Group of Ford, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen,Audi and Honda. For further information, visit us at www.inchcape.com This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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