Volvo's $30 billion IPO is officially off, and Trump's trade war is to blame

Volvo

The Volvo IPO is officially off.

• Volvo, the Swedish automaker, has confirmed plans to shelve an IPO potentially worth $30 billion, having previously blamed President Donald Trump's trade war for postponing the share sale.
• "There are no plans or time schedule for entering into the equity market," Hakkan Samuelsson, Volvo's chief executive said at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
• Volvo's IPO was initially scheduled for September, but was postponed by the firm's parent, Geely.

Volvo, the Swedish automaker, has confirmed plans to shelve an IPO potentially worth $30 billion, having previously blamed President Donald Trump's trade war for postponing the share sale.

"There are no plans or time schedule for entering into the equity market," Hakkan Samuelsson, Volvo's chief executive said at the Los Angeles Auto Show, according to Reuters. He added that the Swedish firm was not looking to raise money through bonds at the present moment.

Samuelsson's confirmation comes around three months after Volvo's IPO was initially scheduled, only to be postponed by Geely, the Chinese auto giant which owns Volvo.

It paused plans for an IPO that valued Volvo at $30 billion because it was worried US President Donald Trump's trade war could hurt its valuation.

"Conditions right now are not optimal to give certain upside for the investors," Samuelsson said at the time.

Read more: Lost jobs, shrinking growth, and rotting crops - here are the ways Trump's trade war is hurting America

In September, Geely said it had secured the backing of investors, but was reportedly worried that Volvo's stock could slip in the immediate aftermath of the flotation, angering Swedish pension funds. The IPO would have been the largest in Sweden since telecoms firm Telia listed in 2001.

Trump's trade war, however, appears to have derailed the listing, with the threat of auto tariffs looming large over the car manufacturing sector. Trump has previously threatened to impose a 25% tariff on all autos and auto parts coming into the US to extract concessions from trading partners including the European Union and Canada.

He is yet to follow through on such threats, but earlier in November it was reported that the White House was circulating a report discussing the prospect of auto tariffs.

The trade war is at a crucial juncture, with Trump and Chinese Xi Jinping set to meet at this weekend's G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The pair are hoping to strike some form of agreement on trade, which would prevent the US raising tariffs from their current 10% level to 25%.

Geely, which also owns British sports car maker Lotus and the company which manufactures London Black Cabs, sold more than 1.2 million cars in 2017.