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bne December 2018 Companies & Markets I 15
Jaguar Land Rover opens engineering centre in Budapest
bne IntelliNews
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is opening a brand-new engineering centre in Hungary, it was announced on November 2. The news came a week after the UK automaker officially launched its €1.4bn plant in Nitra, Slovakia with an initial capacity of 150,000 vehicles.
The facility will open early next year and employ 100 Hungarian engineers. Jaguar has similar facilities only in the UK, Ireland, the US, and China.
The government has offered major incentives for global manufacturers to invest in Hungary. The vehicle sector has been the main target for investors with generous cash subsidies and tax breaks given to investors. BMW's €1bn investment in eastern Hungary will receive a HUF12.3bn (€37.8mn) subsidy.
BMW announced at the end of July that it would build a new plant in Hungary, the first production facility in Europe in 20 years, with a capacity to turn out 150,000 conventional and electric vehicles annually from 2023.
Last year Audi, Mercedes, Suzuki, and Opel turned out a total of 472,000 cars or some 2.8% of the 19mn cars manufactured in the EU. With the investment by BMW and the second plant by Mercedes, Hungary's annual car production could rise to 800,000 by 2023.
Hungary’s vehicle sector is set to surpass last year’s HUF8.5
trillion (€26.1bn) production value, which was met in the first eight months of this year. Some 91% of output is exported and the sector accounted for 28.2% of the country's industrial production.
The announcement by Jaguar Land Rover marks a new chapter in the Hungarian automotive industry as we welcome a new premium OEM to our country, Hungarian Foreign and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto said. "The investment reaffirms our foreign direct investment strategy and in particular our specific focus on high-quality automotive-related growth," he added.
“BMW announced at the end of July that it would build a new plant in Hungary, the first production facility in Europe in 20 years”
Nick Rogers, executive director of product engineering, said: "Hungary has a strong track record in automotive engineering. We have chosen it as the location for a new engineering office to enable close collaboration with our suppliers located in central and Eastern Europe."
JLR has warned that its UK factories may be hit if Britain leaves the EU without a trade deal, disrupting supply chains.
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Avast to enter London bourse in bid to raise up to $1bn Jaroslav Hroch in Prague
Avast, which owns the popular consumer antivirus company AVG, will apply to list its shares on the London Stock Exchange in the hope of raising $200mn (CZK4.1bn) in primary proceeds from an IPO, the Czech-founded company announced on April 12.
See page 2
St Petersburg's start-up scene flourishes on high talent and low costs
Contents
Avast to enter London bourse
in bid to raise up to $1bn 1 Avast to enter London bourse in bid to raise up to $1bn 2 St Petersburg's start-up scene
flourishes on high talent and low costs 3 Romania entrepreneur aims to put home-grown UAV defence technology industry on the map 6
FinTech
Russia's mobile major MTS increases stake in Ozon to 16.7% 9
Blockchain
Romanian startups at the heart
of blockchain energy trading rally 10
Central Europe
Russian-Lithuanian startup Gosu.ai
raises $1.9mn from Russian and
French investors 13
Eurasia
Iran hit by cyber attack that left US
flag on screens 14 Iranian government set to block hugely popular Telegram messaging app 15 Iran's black market phone disconnection drive pushes up legal mobile imports 15
Eastern Europe
Internet catches up with TV on Russian
ad market 17 Sales of connected appliances jump
in Russia 17 Russia's HeadHunter Group seeks
to raise $250mn with NASDAQ IPO 18 Russia ranks second in the world
for digital piracy 18 Russian messaging service Telegram raised another $850mn with ICO 19
Southeast Europe
Russia's HeadHunter Group seeks
to raise $250mn with NASDAQ IPO 20
The Regions This Month 21
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