Sollers closes deal for purchase of Isuzu Rus from Japan's Isuzu

MOSCOW. July 14 (Interfax) - Sollers has closed a deal to acquire 100% of Isuzu Rus, the automaker said.

"As part of the deal to acquire the legal entity, the Sollers Group will supply spare parts for Isuzu trucks in order to fulfill warranty obligations to customers and provide service," the statement said.

Sollers also plans to restart the production site of Isuzu Rus JSC in Ulyanovsk "in order to save jobs and ensure the use of the capacity of existing production facilities."

The Isuzu brand was officially introduced in Russia in 2006. The automaker's plant in Ulyanovsk has been operating since 2012. The Isuzu commercial vehicle range included chassis with a gross weight of 3.5 to 33 tonnes, as well as D-Max pickups. The brand's dealer network consisted of about 100 centers in Russia, Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan.

Sollers combines the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant (produces UAZ vehicles, a key asset of the group), the ZMZ industrial facility (Nizhny Novgorod Region), an LCV production plant in Yelabuga, restarted at the end of November (on the site of a former joint venture with Ford), a car plant in the Far East which is about to reopen (a former joint venture with Mazda), as well as the site of the Isuzu joint venture in Ulyanovsk region which was liquidated at the end of February.

The main shareholder of Sollers until last summer was businessman Vadim Shvetsov. In June 2022, he sold a controlling stake in the group (77.6%) to the Alter Invest company, which is made up of the group's top managers.