With the stroke of a few pens putting signatures under a contract in Moscow today, then Renault-Nissan Alliance has become Russia’s largest automaker. The Alliance took control of AVTOVAZ, maker of the market-leading Lada brand. Lada holds 30 percent of Russia’s rapidly growing car market.
The Renault-Nissan Alliance entered a joint venture with the Russian Technologies State Corporation. Renault-Nissan will hold 67.13 percent of the joint venture by mid-2014. The joint venture will then hold 74.5 percent of AVTOVAZ. Renault purchased 25 percent of AVTOVAZ in 2008 and then helped AVTOVAZ in its successful turnaround, mainly by replacing outdated Lada cars with Dacia technology.
Two new Lada models, the Largus and Granta, have attracted high demand and the company is sitting on a backlog of six months’ worth of orders, Reuters says.
