KUALA LUMPUR (June 2): Glovemaker Careplus Group Bhd said it has signed a term sheet with GoAuto Group Sdn Bhd to explore the business of selling and manufacturing electric vehicles (EV) as joint venture partners.

The two companies intend to collaborate to build an EV manufacturing and assembly hub on a 74-acre piece of land in Chembong, Negeri Sembilan owned by Careplus, the latter said.

Careplus is also exploring the purchase of 30% in a unit of GoAuto by issuing 25 million new Careplus shares, in order to import the Neta brand EV — said to be the cheapest EV in Malaysian market at below RM100,000 currently — via exclusive distribution here.

Aside from the Chembong land, Careplus said it may also lease out the Careplus Mall Seremban which it owns “to potentially support the injection value into the relevant JV companies”.

“Careplus further intends to start-up a dealership of Neta EV (via a joint venture company) and to further expand into dealerships of other EV brands with the support from GoAuto’s expertise,” it said.

Careplus announced in April plans to explore the energy efficiency management business and renewable energy.

At the time, it explored partnership with Howard Woon Howl Chuen, which will see the latter taking up a 7.7% stake in Careplus’ wholly-owned unit Masterclean Technologies Sdn Bhd — with an option to raise his stake to 40%.

Shares of Careplus traded unchanged at 29.5 sen, giving it a market capitalisation of RM167.81 million.