Intel Seeks Approval to Buy Stake in HERE

By Sarah Sloat

FRANKFURT--Intel Corp. is seeking to buy a stake in HERE, the digital-mapping company owned by Germany's luxury carmakers, according to a filing to Germany's Federal Cartel Office.

An spokesman for the office declined to say how large a stake the U.S. chip maker aimed to buy. The antitrust authority has a month to decide whether to approve the acquisition.

Neither HERE nor Intel were immediately available for comment.

HERE is owned by Daimler AG, BMW AG and Volkswagen AG's Audi AG unit, which bought the map maker from Nokia Corp. in 2015 for roughly 2.5 billion euros ($2.6 billion) in a move to build a platform for self-driving cars.

Last week, HERE said internet services group Tencent Holdings Ltd., NavInfo Co. and Singaporean fund GIC planned to buy a joint 10% stake for an undisclosed price.

Digital cartography will be essential for autonomous cars, which require precise information about a vehicle's surroundings. HERE's services include maps for nearly 200 countries alongside other data, which it provides to the makers of navigation devices and cars as well as websites and apps.

The car makers began approaching potential partners soon after buying HERE in mid-2015 and over the past months have said they were in talks with numerous investors to broaden the shareholder base.

-Write to Sarah Sloat at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 03, 2017 06:30 ET (11:30 GMT)

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