Daimler Doubtful About CIC Plan to Buy 10% Stake in the Company

Daimler said it does not expect China Investment Corp to purchase 10% stake in the German automaker.

“No, I don’t expect this to happen. There is a lot of speculation about us looking for another anchor shareholder in addition to Kuwait, but that’s not true,” Bodo Uebber told Handelsblatt in an interview published on Monday in a German newspaper.

Last month Daimler shares increased after a Chinese media report that CIC plans to purchase a stake of between 4% and 10% in Daimler. But an anonymous source, with direct knowledge of the issue, told the Financial Times that CIC is not in talks with the German automaker. Shares fell back after the report was denied. CIC, which manages almost $150 billion in overseas assets, has begun to focus on natural resources and infrastructure after its investments in financial institutions have been affected by global credit crisis.

At the beginning of this month Daimler purchased 12% in BAIC Motor, part of its plan to expand in China as Daimler Chief Executive Officer Dieter Zetsche has promised that by the end of the decade Mercedes will regain the top spot lost in 2005 to BMW.