Earlier this month, SsangYong was told by parent company Mahindra & Mahindra that a gigantic investment has been shelved. Now, however, the South Korean brand is getting a (much smaller) capital injection.
Indian industry giant Mahindra & Mahindra took a 70 percent majority stake in the SsangYong Motor Company last year. To give the ailing brand a lot more air, Mahindra had the prospect of a gigantic investment of converted € 375 million. That should help SsangYong move forward and ultimately make it profitable again in the next three years.
However, the corona crisis has forced M&M to postpone this investment, now that Mahindra has to make every effort. The Indians were willing to make a smaller investment in SsangYong anyway. That capital injection has been approved by SsangYong, reports Automotive News. It concerns an amount of converted € 30 million. With this, the manufacturer wants to solve direct liquidity problems. Larger investments will still be necessary at a later stage to get back on the rise.
SsangYong scrambled up considerably from 2013 to 2016 after years of disappointing sales. 2016 was the best year worldwide: when the brand sold nearly 3.5 times as many cars three years earlier, with almost 20,000 cars per year. Since then, worldwide sales have fallen slightly and the average is around 15,000 cars per year. Europe is the most important market for SsangYong, with Italy as the largest customer.
Here in the Netherlands, SsangYong offers six models; the Tivoli (photo), the XLV, the Korando, the New Rexton, the Rodius and the Actyon Sports. In 2019, only two cars were sold new in our country. In the past ten years, 2011 was the ‘most successful’ year, with 33 cars sold. Things had improved considerably in the previous decade.