FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German automotive supplier Continental (DE:CONG) is still interested in working with digital mapping firm HERE, Chief Executive Elmar Degenhart said on Tuesday.
"We are still in talks and haven't lost our optimism that we will strike a deal sometime in the future," he told Reuters at the Frankfurt auto show.
Germany's Manager Magazin in July cited sources as saying that Continental was in talks to acquire an 8 to 10 percent stake in HERE.
Carmakers BMW (DE:BMWG), Daimler (DE:DAIGn) and Volkswagen (DE:VOWG_p) bought HERE for 2.8 billion euros ($3.35 billion) in 2015 from Finnish telecoms group Nokia (HE:NOKIA)
Last year Chinese digital mapping company NavInfo (SZ:002405), Tencent (HK:0700) and Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC took a 10 percent stake in HERE, with the German carmakers pledging to reduce their own stakes.
But HERE needs more capital to expand its network of high-precision maps and has been in talks with other investors.