Magna intends to purchase new assets in Russia

Magna is studying the possibilities of purchasing the new assets in Russia, as the co-president of Magna Don Walker reported. The company is looking for possibilities to diversify the business and to reduce the share of contracts with manufacturers in the North America. As the newspaper “Vedomosti” reminds, Magna started working in Russia in 2006. It also planned to build a factory in Togliatti (in cooperation with AVTOVAZ) and to output cars on a new platform of class C, however the partners only developed the car.

Now Magna is building the factory of production of plastic in St. – Petersburg and plans to build the same one in Kaluga. At the end of 2008 it leased a workshop at “Ighorskie factories” to develop the production of plastic details. In December Magna bought “Technoplast” in Nighnij Novgorod, which manufacturers car bumpers, radiator enclosures, door panels, front panels, central consoles, door edging. According to opinion of experts, any auto component asset could become a new object of absorption of Magna, but it is mainly interested in plastic and production of stamping.

As it is noted in a new marketing report “Market of automotive components and parts in Russia”, despite the developing financial crisis and temporary problems at the Russian automotive industry, further outlooks of the market of automotive components and parts are rather optimistic. Thereof displacement of key points in the structure of production of passenger cars in Russia to foreign cars, the capacity of the primary market is growing. The same picture is seen at the aftermarket: the growth of number of foreign cars leads to growth of volume of market (in money terms), because, despite the quality of cars of foreign brands, these cars also demand periodical maintenance.