Antonov signs joint venture agreement with Landai

Antonov, the UK-based vehicle transmission technology specialist, is pleased to announce the successful conclusion of negotiations to secure a partner for its manufacturing joint venture in China with the signing of an agreement with Chong Qing Landai Industries Co Ltd ('Landai').

Under the terms of the agreement the joint venture will develop Antonov's ‘TX-6’ automatic transmission for start of production, planned to begin during the course of 2011.

The 6-speed gearbox will be manufactured in the joint venture facilities, which will provide capacity for a minimum 200,000 transmissions per year. The manufacturing plant will be established at Landai's new site in Chong Qing, reducing the level of investment originally anticipated. Consequently, additional funding will be available to focus on accelerating the development programme to achieve production at the earliest possible date.

Each party will hold 50 per cent of the shares in the joint venture, which will involve investment of RMB 150 million (around €15m) by each party, totalling RMB 300 million, or approximately €30m. The registered capital of the joint venture will be RMB 50 million (around €5m), of which each party will contribute its RMB 25 million (approximately €2.5m) share in cash. This funding will be brought into the company as soon as it is legally established, which is expected to occur in the next few weeks.

Landai recorded turnover of USD 70 million in 2008 and employs 1,400 people in the Chong Qing province, with a well established customer base among Chinese vehicle manufacturers including Geely, Chery, Lifan, YuAn and FAW. It also has established long term partnerships with companies in Iran, India and Korea. Further information on Lan Dai is available at http://en.cqld.com.

Mr Zhu, chairman of Landai, commented: “After visiting the Antonov Technical Centre in Warwick and assessing its technical capabilities and organisation, I am very happy to have signed the agreement for the joint venture and look forward to working closely with our new partner.”

Dr. Jos E. Haag, executive chairman of Antonov Plc commented: “I am delighted that Antonov is now at the point where we can work towards production with the best possible partner in China, considering that Landai already has good relationships with customers like Lifan, Geely and Chery.”

The joint venture follows Antonov’s recent signing of a cooperation agreement with Chong Qing Landai Industries and Lifan Industry Group, which brings Lifan into the engineering programme to bring the TX-6 into production. The first step will be to build a TX-6 prototype into two Lifan 620 cars, which is expected to take about six months.

Six-speed automatic transmissions are much desired by Chinese motorists, but currently have to be imported by the domestic carmakers. A major technical innovation in Antonov’s all-new TX-6 gearbox is eliminating the traditional torque converter in a planetary transmission, thereby bringing the efficiency of an automatic much closer to that of a manual. The transmission is protected by worldwide patents.

Landai’s development strategy is focussed on transmissions being the main business of the company, taking the leading position in China on transmission technology, and gradually transferring production from manual gearboxes to automatics.

Further information on Antonov technology is available at antonovat.com