By Gleb Stolyarov
(Reuters) -Japan’s Mazda Motor has lost the right to buy back its 50% stake in a car-manufacturing joint venture in Russia after failing to exercise an option to do so, its former Russian partner Sollers told Reuters.
Abandoning the Russian market after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, global carmakers including Mazda, Renault, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai sold their assets to Russian firms for symbolic amounts and agreed options to purchase them back within several years. Mazda is the first to lose its buyback rights.
Mazda’s stake in the joint venture, which used to assemble Mazda passenger cars in the city of Vladivostok, was sold to Sollers for one euro in October 2022 with an option to buy it back for the same amount within three years.
“The Sollers Group did not receive any proposals or inquiries from Mazda regarding the exercise of the option, and under the current conditions, we do not see any need for it,” Sollers said in an emailed response to Reuters questions.
Mazda did not respond to a request for comment.
Sollers said the Vladivostok factory, which had the capacity to make up to 50,000 cars a year, was relaunched in 2023 and is now producing buses under the Sollers brand.
About 1.5 million new cars per year are sold in Russia. With Chinese players now dominating the market, most factories purchased by Russian firms from foreign carmakers are now producing Chinese cars under new Russian brands. At the former Renault plant in Moscow, for example, Chinese-built cars are now assembled under the Soviet brand Moskvich.
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; Additional reporting by Daniel Leussink in Tokyo; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
