Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Mitsubishi Corp., Japan’s largest trading house, bought a 40 percent stake in Russia’s Rolf Import, Nikkei English News reported, without saying where it obtained the information.

The purchase may cost the company as much as $18 billion, depending on Rolf Import’s earnings, the newspaper said. Rolf, Russia’s largest automobile dealership group, is a distributor of Mitsubishi Motors Corp. cars.

To contact the reporters on this story: Theresa Barraclough in Tokyo at tbarraclough@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 6, 2009 21:28 EST