BMW Buys Car-Sharing Partner DriveNow - Opens Door For Mercedes Alliance

Germany’s BMW has bought out partner Sixt from their joint venture DriveNow, paving the way for a broader car-sharing and driverless taxi alliance with Daimler to compete against the likes of Uber and Lyft.

Car rental company Sixt said on Monday it would generate an extraordinary pre-tax profit of about 200 million euros ($248 million) in 2018 from the sale of the DriveNow stake to BMW for 209 million euros.

“With DriveNow as a wholly-owned subsidiary, we have all options for continued strategic development of our services,” Peter Schwarzenbauer, BMW’s board member for Digital Business Innovation, said.

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