In the course of the demerger of the Daimler group, the Chinese partner company BAIC has emerged as the largest shareholder in the Stuttgart-based car manufacturer. Around two years after the acquisition, the state-owned Beijing Automotive Group (BAIC) announced on Monday that it owned 9.98 percent of the voting rights in the Dax group. So far, only five percent were known. BAIC is thus Daimler's largest shareholder, ahead of Li Shufu, the owner of the competing private-sector car maker Geely. Li holds 9.69 percent. The Stuttgart car company in turn owns 9.55 percent of BAIC Motor and 2.46 percent of the electric car manufacturer BAIC Bluepark.

BAIC and Daimler, who have been working together for almost 20 years, said that the mutual participation underscores the great importance of their cooperation. This is "an excellent example of German-Chinese cooperation, which makes significant contributions to bilateral industrial cooperation, technological innovation and economic and social developments," said BAIC.

According to an agreement between the two companies, BAIC has confirmed that it will no longer increase its stake in Daimler. The reason for the announcement was the spin-off and the IPO of the truck subsidiary Daimler Truck from the Daimler Group. Last week, Daimler shareholders received a truck share for two shares. A shareholder register then makes it clear how much the state-owned car manufacturer from China holds in the Stuttgart company. Two years ago, the investment bank HSBC acquired a roughly five percent stake in Daimler. At the time, insiders had told Reuters that BAIC was behind the move as a prospective buyer.

The subject is politically sensitive. That is why Geely's rise to become Daimler's largest shareholder at the beginning of 2019 sparked discussions. The then Economics Minister Brigitte Zypries (SPD) had expressed concerns that a Chinese competitor could gain insight into Daimler's strategy. The grand coalition was fundamentally skeptical of the growing influence of Chinese, mostly state-controlled companies on German key industries.

For Daimler, the cooperation with BAIC via a joint venture in which the Swabians hold 49 percent is an important source of profit.

In 2020, they achieved sales of 611,000 vehicles in the world's largest car market and sales of 23.7 billion euros.

This year, Daimler had made a profit of around one billion euros from the joint venture by the end of September.

With Geely, Daimler wants to bring the small car Smart as a purely electric model to the market more cheaply than before.