Toyota to Buy $1 Billion Grab Stake to Expand in Ride Hailing

Ville Heiskanen, Bloomberg News

The Grab Rental logo is displayed on the trunk of a car in Singapore, on Thursday, April 26, 2018. Ride-hailing service Grab started a new app in March that will be a single marketplace offering different sharing options for bicycles and electronic-scooters in Singapore, according to a company statement. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp. said it plans to invest $1 billion in Grab, extending cooperation with the ride-hailing provider in Southeast Asia.

One Toyota executive will be appointed to Grab’s board, and a Toyota employee will be seconded to Grab to as an executive officer, the carmaker said in a statement Wednesday. Toyota didn’t disclose the size of the stake.

After boosting its grip on Southeast Asia with a deal with Uber Technologies Inc., six-year-old Grab is racing to become the region’s leading online-to-offline mobile platform and an everyday app for millions of users. It faces fierce competition from Indonesian rival Go-Jek, which is expanding ride-hailing and other services in Southeast Asia.

--With assistance from Yoolim Lee.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ville Heiskanen in Singapore at vheiskanen@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anand Krishnamoorthy at anandk@bloomberg.net