UPDATE: Toyota Hikes Its Stake in Subaru

Toyota Motor Corp. is raising its stake in Subaru Corp. above 20% from about 17% and will begin posting a share of Subaru profits in its own financial reports.

The boards of both companies approved the deal earlier today. Separately, Toyota also holds stakes of less than 10% in Mazda and Suzuki Motor.

Today’s deal makes Subaru an equity-method affiliate of the larger carmaker, indicating that Toyota will have significant influence over Subaru’s operations and financial decisions.

Each company will invest about 75 billion yen ($693 million) in its partner. The deal will give Subaru a stake of roughly 1% in Toyota.

The two companies also intend to strengthen their 14-year-old partnership and broaden their cooperation in such areas as connectivity and autonomous vehicles, electrification and connectivity, The Nikkei reports.

Subaru already assembles cars for Toyota, including the “86” sports car (a twin of the co-developed Subaru BRZ) and Camry sedan. Subaru’s Crosstrek SUV uses Toyota’s hybrid powertrain technology.

In June, the partners also announced they would co-develop an electric vehicle platform and use it to carry a midsize SUV whose variants would be marketed separately by each company.