WEIGL, a Swedish gearbox manufacturer, has fallen under BAIC’s control in the latest acquisition by the State owned Chinese car manufacturer. WEIGL was born from the ashes of the GM Power-train Transmission plant in Gothenburg, Sweden and became a privately owned company. For unknown reasons WEIGL has been sold onto Beijing Auto Industry Corporation.
BAIC paid 310 million Euro for the manufacturer which included the factory, production equipment and IPR to the range of gearboxes that are produced by WEIGL.
After their purchase of the Saab 9-3 and Saab 9-5 platforms, BAIC are eager to hasten the production of the models in China for local consumption under the reborn Beijing Auto brand. BAIC’s chairman, W.ang Da Zong, was quoted as saying by Netease as saying that the brand will launch the Saab based models within the year and will be mid to high end vehicles.
The factory that BAIC bought belongs to the German WEIGL group who supplies large quantities of gearboxes to GM, and has a high level of quality. According to early information, the deal includes F25 and F35 gearboxes as well as production lines and the all important IPR documents.
BAIC buys WEIGL factory