Chery Automobile Co. is trying to establish a new luxury car company for China.

 

Paul Gao, a former consultant for McKinsey & Company Inc. China, said Chery has hired him to lead a new joint venture with an undisclosed foreign investor.

 

A source close to Chery said the new company is Chery Quantum Auto Co., established in December 2007 with Israel Corp. The Tel Aviv-based industrial conglomerate holds a 45 percent share, with Chery owning the rest.

 

According to Gao, the new company's purpose will be to "follow in the footsteps of Toyota by creating a Lexus for China."

 

The name of the new luxury brand has not yet been decided, said Gao. Its vehicles will be developed for export, he said, as well as sold onto the domestic Chinese market.

 

Gao would not give a date for the brand's launch. He said he was now in the process of recruiting its core engineering and management team. The new company's executives will be "very experienced experts," hired away from overseas divisions of global carmakers and not Chinese joint ventures, Gao added.

 

Chery's domestic sales fell 6 percent last year amid perceptions of inferior quality. The automaker has come under criticism for developing more projects -- vehicle models and business ventures -- than it can manage successfully.

 

Nonetheless, Gao says the greenfield venture for luxury vehicles will be in keeping with a new company philosophy of devoting more energy to fewer tasks.

 

"Chery's focus now is on doing a few things and doing them right, rather than trying to do too many things and not doing them well," he said.