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TRUCKMAKERS' NEWS WORLDWIDE
* Sweden - Renault denies planning to sell Volvo stake
Stockholm,Sweden -Reuters -Mar 24, 2009: -- French carmaker Renault denied on Tuesday a Swedish media report that it was in talks to sell its near 22 percent stake in world No. 2 truckmaker Volvo to Investor AB... Business magazine Veckans Affarer reported on its website that Renault was discussing a deal that would make Investor AB, the holding company of Sweden's powerful Wallenberg family, Volvo's biggest shareholder. It did not disclose its sources... Renault owns 21.8 percent of the truckmaker and is currently the group's largest shareholder... The magazine said the Wallenberg family was in the middle of "intense work" to determine whether to make a new foray into the heavy-duty truck sector after selling its stake in Volvo's domestic rival Scania to Germany's Volkwswagen last year...
* Sweden - Volvo February truck shipments plunge 51 percent
Stockholm,Sweden -Reuters, by Niklas Pollard and Victoria Klesty; additional reporting by Katarina Gustafsson; Editing by Dan Lalor -Mar 24, 2009: -- World number two truckmaker Volvo said truck shipments tumbled 51 percent in February as the global economic downturn pummeled demand in all its main markets... Volvo, which sells trucks under brands such as Renault, Nissan Diesel and Mack as well as its own name, said in a statement on Tuesday shipments plunged 63 percent year-on-year in Europe, its biggest market... The Swedish maker of heavy-duty trucks has cut capacity, slashing thousands of jobs to adjust to a downturn some analysts believe will see the European truck market contract 50 percent this year...
*USA - Mack gears down with more shutdowns at Pa. plant
Allentown,PA,USA -WRAL.com —Mar. 25, 2009: -- Mack Trucks is laying off up to 25 more employees and scheduling three more weeklong production shutdowns at its eastern Pennsylvania plant... Spokesman John Mies says the economic doldrums mean tight credit and diminished freight-hauling volume, both bad for truck sales... Mack's February deliveries totaled 942 trucks. That's better than the 624 delivered in January, but still 392 less than in February 2008... The plant has had five one-week shutdowns this year, including one this week. Now it will be idle during the weeks of April 20, April 27 and May 18...
* Germany - Daimler Share Sale Fails to Lift Credit Concern, Moody’s Says
Frankfurt,Germany -Bloomberg, by Chris Reiter -March 24, 2009: -- Daimler AG’s 1.95 billion-euro ($2.6 billion) stock sale failed to ease concern at Moody’s Investors Service that the carmaker’s finances may be slipping as auto markets shrink, an analyst said... Falk Frey, an analyst at Moody’s in Frankfurt, said today, “The key driver of the negative outlook is on the operating side and the risk of a further downturn, which hasn’t changed.”... Moody’s put Daimler on notice on Feb. 18 that it may downgrade the Stuttgart, Germany-based automaker’s A3 rating, the fourth-lowest investment grade, on 56.7 billion euros in debt as the recession hurts sales. Daimler sold a 9.1 percent stake yesterday to Abu Dhabi’s state-controlled Aabar Investments PJSC. Brigitte Bertram, a Daimler spokeswoman, declined to comment today...
* Germany - Volkswagen Van Unit Forecasts Lower Profit, Sales
Hanover,Germany -Bloomberg, by Andreas Cremer -March 25, 2009: -- Volkswagen AG, Europe’s largest carmaker, said profit and sales at its commercial-vehicles unit will fall this year as the recession prompts construction and delivery companies to buy fewer Caravelle and Multivan trucks... Unit chief Stephan Schaller said today at a news conference in Hanover, Germany, it’s clear that operating profit, unit sales and revenue will all decline in 2009 after registrations rose last year, he said... European sales of vans slumped 38 percent last month, while heavy-truck deliveries plunged 46 percent, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association said today. Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen fired temporary workers and reduced the workweek at plants in Hanover and Poznan, Poland, last year to cope with the economic crisis...
* Germany - Merkel Makes Like Obama With German Stimulus Excluding Europe
Munich,Germany -Bloomberg, by Richard Tomlinson (London,UK) & Oliver Suess (Munich,Germany) -March 26, 2009: -- ... As global consumer demand melts away, slowing production lines across Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel is injecting 82 billion euros ($110 billion) into the economy, the biggest stimulus package in Europe... That program is designed to help export-driven companies such as MAN, Europe’s third-largest truckmaker, which sells about 60 percent of its vehicles outside Germany... In 2008, MAN made 168 trucks a day at its factory 500 yards (460 meters) from the site of the former Nazi concentration camp in the northwestern suburb of Dachau. In January, the company stretched the time to make each truck section by 39 seconds and halted production on Thursdays and Fridays. In February, the company shuttered the plant for two weeks... MAN’s fourth-quarter profit in 2008 almost halved to 177 million euros compared with a year earlier, the company said in a Feb. 19 statement. From Jan. 2 to March 25, MAN’s share price slumped 19 percent to 33.09 euros... “I hope the market will come back, but I cannot realistically say I believe it will come back this year,” says Hakan Samuelsson, MAN’s Swedish-born chief executive officer, at the company’s headquarters in Munich..
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