If the name Astara sounds familiar, that’s because it is the new distributor of the French carmaker Peugeot in our market. And now, it looks like the aggressive international car distributor—with presence on three continents and in 17 countries as you read this—is poised to launch another brand under its umbrella.

You see, we’ve been hearing rumors that the Chinese car brand GAC will move to another management team, and that said team will be Astara. We’ve refused to report this as our sources are not willing to go on record.

But then, today, we received the following invite from Astara Philippines:

The e-mail reads:

Astara Philippines, the exclusive distributor of Peugeot in the Philippines, will hold a special and exclusive event on January 10, 2023. We’d appreciate if you could save the date in your calendar for now. More details will be sent closer to the date of this event.

Our gut feel is that Astara will formally announce its takeover of the GAC brand in the Philippines. This could explain the weird silence of GAC after having flaunted the Empow and the GS8 at the 2022 Manila International Auto Show back in April.

Well, this validates that consolidation is the name of the game in the car business right now. Astara also distributes GAC in two Latin American countries, Chile and Peru.

Let’s see if the partnership will work in our market.