The car manufacturing giant Renault-Nissan bought a blocking stake of 25% plus one share in AvtoVAZ for $1 billion late in February.
Kommersant said the partners had not yet officially proposed buying Avtotor, which assembles Chevrolet, Chery, Kia, Yuejin, BMW, Cadillac and Hummer vehicles in Kaliningrad, Russia's exclave on the Baltic Sea, but a delegation of Renault officials and AvtoVAZ deputy head, Maxim Nagaitsev, visited the plant two weeks ago.
"AvtoVAZ and Renault could take advantage of Avtotor's problems which have already caused a stoppage in the production of Chery cars, and buy the plant at a 20% discount," the daily said.
In an interview with the newspaper, AvtoVAZ CEO Boris Alyoshin confirmed that the two carmakers were seeking to expand production through acquisitions in Russia.
"We have not yet made any official offer to Avtotor's shareholders, we are just eyeing things up," Alyoshin said.
Kommersant added that AvtoVAZ and Renault were also considering buying another assembly plant, IzhAvto. Sources at AvtoVAZ told the paper that the plant was "far more interesting than Avtotor," with facilities available at IzhAvto for welding and painting 220,000 car body kits, against Avtotor's 50,000.
Avtotor assembled 100,000 cars last year, with no financial reports available. The plant's major shareholder is its top management led by Vladimir Shcherbakov, chairman of the board of directors.
AvtoVAZ sold a record 663,500 cars in 2007 and plans to roll out 1.5 million cars annually by 2015. The company also plans to conduct an IPO in late September.
