(Reuters) – French carmaker Renault said on Thursday it would sell all of its 1.54% stake in Germany’s Daimler in order to speed up de-leveraging of its automotive business.
Renault said in a statement that it would sell its 16.45 million Daimler shares through a placement to qualified investors via an accelerated bookbuilding process.
Based on Daimler’s closing share price of 72.09 euros per share on Thursday, Renault’s stake would be worth a little more than 1.18 billion euros ($1.41 billion).
“The industrial partnership between the Renault Group and Daimler remains unchanged and is not impacted by this financial transaction,” Renault said.
The French carmaker, with it Japanese partner Nissan, had exchanged stakes with Daimler in 2010 to strengthen their industrial partnerships.
($1 = 0.8347 euros)
(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten and Gilles Guillaume; Editing by Susan Fenton)
