MOSCOW, March 30 (Reuters) - Russia's largest dealer of foreign cars, Rolf, will stop selling Peugeot vehicles and has put the brakes on a planned merger with Helsinki-based Avelon Group, its chief executive said on Monday.
CEO Nick Hawkins said Rolf could not meet sales targets with Peugeot. "It's absolutely no reflection on the brand, but we just couldn't get the critical mass that we needed."
A spokeswoman for Peugeot said she could not immediately comment.
Rolf is also freezing the expansion of its dealership network, Hawkins said, as car sales in Russia plummet amid the global financial crisis.
"We had a number of (dealership) projects under commencement, and we stopped those," he said in an interview.
Merger negotiations with Avelon, a logistics firm, have also been put on hold due to the difficult market environment, Hawkins said. (Reporting by Simon Shuster)