General Motors of Canada has said it will acquire full ownership of the CAMI Automotive Incorporated (CAMI) car assembly joint venture in Ingersoll, Ontario, through a purchase transaction to buy shares currently owned by long-time partner Suzuki Motor.
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Neither partner has given a date for completion of the deal.
Though the plant once assembled small Suzuki SUVs, CAMI lately has built only GM’s popular Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain and is currently boosting capacity to meet strong demand for the compact crossovers.
Arturo Elias, president of GM Canada, said: “Bringing CAMI completely into the GM family is a strong vote of confidence in the people there and builds on the recent positive news at the plant since the highly successful launch of the [two crossovers].”
Sales of the pair increased over 17% in November and GM is expanding output through scheduled overtime, the recent addition of a third shift and commencement of a C$90m body shop expansion to increase capacity by an additional 40,000 vehicles annually.
“We received a request from GM that it wished to buy our stake in CAMI. We responded to that,” a Suzuki spokesman in Japan told Kyodo News.
The factory now does not produce anything for the Suzuki brand, the spokesman said.
“We have no plan to bring Suzuki vehicles there, so the level of necessity has been very low” for the Japanese firm to keep its stake, he said.
Suzuki will continue its cooperation with GM on developing fuel cells and other environmental technologies, the company added.
