Volkswagen prepares MAN Truck end-game
Volkswagen has made its long-expected move to gain full control of fellow German truck manufacture MAN Truck and Buses. Volkswagen, which is also a major sharedholder of Scania Trucks, has been trying to bring its two heavy vehicle concerns over since the turn of the decade. It has been gradually ramping up its ownership of […]
MAN Trucks has been making progress in the Middle East and Africa
Volkswagen has made its long-expected move to gain full control of fellow German truck manufacture MAN Truck and Buses.
Volkswagen, which is also a major sharedholder of Scania Trucks, has been trying to bring its two heavy vehicle concerns over since the turn of the decade. It has been gradually ramping up its ownership of both and currently holds a controlling stake of 75.03% in MAN.
Ahead of MAN Truck’s 6 June meeting, the car giant has made a cash offer to shareholders priced at 80.89 euros or $104.34 per share. The offer is someway short of analyst evaluations which judge shares in the German truck maker to be valued close to 95 euros per share.
Bloomberg has reported that the shareholders that do not accept this cash offer “will receive a guaranteed annual dividend of 3.07 euros per share. VW and MAN will agree on final conditions after they receive full valuation reports from auditors.”
Volkswagen needs complete control over MAN Trucks to complete an integration into its global operation and enable it to better compete with Daimler and Volvo. By fusing MAN into with its commercial vehicles arm and Scania it would become the dominant force in the market.
It has already appointed MAN CEO Georg Pachta-Reyhofen to oversee group’s industrial business and last year appointed Scania’s boss to its board to help facilitate integration.
Despite performing strongly in the Middle East, MAN saw a fall in sales last year and describe a drop in its operating profit as “disproportionately large.”
Earlier this year Volkswagen announced that it was in talks with the board of MAN to enable the deal. The June meeting is expected to see approval from both companies. In lieu of the formal offer, MAN shareholders will be entitled to dividend derived from the higher of two figures: the average share price over the past three months or a price based on an independent evaluation.
