China’s Geely Holdings is reportedly in talks with banks to list its brand, Volvo Cars, in an upcoming initial public offering. The brand could be looking for a valuation as high as $30 billion.
That figure would make Volvo Cars Europe’s biggest IPO of the year and was suggested to Reuters by an unnamed source. Another source, meanwhile, suggested that the brand could be looking for a valuation of $20 billion, a number that has been suggested before, while a third offered $16 billion as a more realistic figure. The automaker, which is investing in EVs, may take advantage of a so-called green rush to squeeze money out of the market.
Volvo and Geely are in talks with Goldman Sachs and SEB to lead the transaction, while other banks, including BNP Paribas, Carnegie, and HSBC are also part of the deal.
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Geely bought Volvo more than a decade ago and is widely seen to have given the brand the investments and the space it needed to become the growing brand it is today. The Chinese company has looked to the automaker as a base for engineering and for developing platforms that can be shared among its many brands, including Lynk & Co and Polestar.
Rumors of a Volvo IPO have been turning in the mill since at least 2018. In July 2021, though, the company’s CEO, Hakan Samuelsson said that the brand is “looking at the possibility of doing an IPO before the end of the year.”
At the time, though, Volvo said that even if Geely spun it off, the two companies would continue to share technology, powertrains, and components, adding, though, that they would operate at “an arm’s length distance.”
