Aston Martin shares jump 25% after Geely increases its stake in the company

Shares of Aston Martin jumped nearly 25% after the announcement of a £234m ($295m) investment by Chinese automaker Geely in the British luxury sports car maker, making Geely the company's third largest shareholder, Forbes reports.

During the day on May 18, Aston Martin shares on the London Stock Exchange rose to £2.88 per share ($3.6), while at the close of the previous trading session the price per share was £2.32 ($2.9). By 16:40 Moscow time, Aston Martin shares rose by 15.9% to £2.7 ($3.4) per share, according to trading data on the LSE.

Shares in China Oceanwide Holdings (owner of Geely) also climbed 5.8% by the close of trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

On May 18, Aston Martin announced that Geely had acquired about 42 million shares of common stock from the automaker's largest shareholder, Lawrence Stroll's Yew Tree (worth, according to Forbes Real-Time, $3.7 billion), for a price of £3,335 ($4. 21) per share and was given the right to purchase another 28 million new shares at the same price (with a 45% premium over the May 17 closing price).

"They offered us a deep understanding of the key strategic growth market that is China, as well as the opportunity to gain access to their technologies and components," Stroll said in a statement.