German carmaker Daimler AG dismissed market talk on Tuesday it could divest its Maybach super luxury brand, after Chinese media reported that a Chinese firm was considering buying the brand.
The Guangzhou Daily and other local media said on Monday that Chinese car and battery maker BYD was weighing the possibility of taking over Maybach from Daimler and that it would make a move once the brand was put up for sale.
"Maybach is an important part of Daimler's product portfolio. There is no other decision," a Daimler spokesman said.
Daimler sold just 200 units of the Maybach brand last year, a fraction of the volumes that BMW's Rolls-Royce or Volkswagen's Bentley manage.
Paul Lin, a spokesman at BYD in the southern Chinese boomtown of Shenzhen, where the firm is based, also denied the reports.
"It's not true, it's market speculation. We got calls from the media and we have checked with Chairman Wang," Lin ...