Daimler And Renault To Tie The Knot. Symbolically
After long hand-holding and necking, Daimler and Renault finally seem to progress to third base. The Financial Times reports that the French and the Germans “are in the final stages of wide-ranging strategic partnership talks that would involve the German and French car makers taking ‘symbolic’ minority stakes in each other.”
The “symbolic” cross shareholdings will most likely be a bit more than 3 percent, “just above the threshold whereby shareholdings had to be made public,” said a source to the FT.
A senior industry executive said that the two car makers “don’t want to marry.” They want to get in bed with each other nonetheless, so “it makes sense to underpin that with a symbolic stake.” Call it the high finance version of friendship rings.
The real tie-up is somewhere else: Daimler and Renault want to cooperate in a number of fields, from a small car platform to common components for light trucks and electric cars.
Renault’s Japanese partner Nissan wants to be part of the tie-up. “Nissan Motor Co. has entered negotiations with Daimler AG to procure large engines and cooperate in the development of environmentally friendly vehicles, said The Nikkei [sub] a few days ago.
Nissan may buy large diesel engines and V-8 gasoline engines from Daimler. In return, Daimler will get electric cars and batteries from Nissan.
Both companies aren’t necessarily hard up for money (they have rich sugar daddies in France and Saudi) but a capital tie-up make it easier to “go deeper” into areas such as research and development and purchasing, one person familiar with the talks said: It’s easier to exchange and keep secrets if you exchange stock certificates and board seats.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Aren't these kind of tie-ups pretty common in carmaking? No real commitment on either side. Just some feeling out. A little sharing. But the crown jewels are definitely still kept locked away. Seems good for both sides.
they will hold hands as long as there're benefits to be traded, soon as the "Thrill is gone" just like BB King's song, they will disappear faster than a Bugatti Veyron need to reach 60 MPH. Back in 99 when Daimler walked down the isle with Chrysler they both got the same Koshering from everybody else.