SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean battery giant LG Energy Solution Ltd (LGES) said on Wednesday it plans to invest $1.5 billion to set up a joint venture with Stellantis NV in Canada.
LGES owns 51% of the joint venture, tentatively named “LGES-STLA JV” and Stellantis owns 49%, LGES said in a regulatory filing.
In October, LGES and Stellantis NV struck an electric vehicle (EV) battery production joint venture, targeting to start production by the first quarter of 2024 and aiming to have an annual production capacity of 40 gigawatt hours of batteries.
In a separate regulatory filing, LGES said it plans to acquire a stake worth $542 million in ES America to respond to demand from EV startups in the United States.
LGES, which counts Tesla Inc, General Motors Co and Volkswagen AG among its customers, currently has battery production sites in the United States, China, Poland and South Korea.
($1 = 1,214.7100 won)
(Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Joyce Lee; Editing by Louise Heavens)
