Daimler has unveiled plans for a new corporate structure designed to give its major business areas greater agility ahead of major challenges and transformation in the mobility and automotive sector. If shareholders agree it could be in place by 2020.
The company plans to set up three legally independent entities — Mercedes-Benz AG, Daimler Truck AG and Daimler Mobility AG, all operating under the umbrella of Daimler AG.
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Daimler said the new structure makes Daimler Group fit for the future with ‘greater entrepreneurial freedom for divisions, even stronger market and customer focus, as well as faster and more flexible partnerships.’
Manfred Bischoff, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Daimler AG, said that “legally independent divisions will sharpen our focus on the future success of the business.”
Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche, said: “We are reshaping our organisation to put Daimler in the best position for the future: technologically, culturally – as well as structurally. At the heart of all these changes are the needs of our customers around the world: With this new structure we will be able to offer them mobility solutions even better tailored to their needs.”
The proposed changes won’t take effect until 2020 and there are one-time costs including tax charges in the high three-digit million euro range.
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By GlobalDataShareholders to vote on the new structure at the Annual General Meeting on May 22, 2019.
After further implementation steps, the planned ‘focused and flexible corporate structure’ is expected to be in place by January 1, 2020.
Daimler also said that an ‘extensive reconciliation of interests’ has been agreed with employee representatives to safeguard jobs until end of 2029.
Once the new structure has been fully implemented the Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans division, under the leadership of Mercedes-Benz AG, will have around 175,000 employees (status: end of March 2018) worldwide, while the Daimler Trucks & Buses division, under the leadership of Daimler Truck AG, will have around 100,000 employees worldwide.
Already legally independent, Daimler Financial Services AG will be called Daimler Mobility AG in the future. With its around 13,000 employees, the division ‘already stands for mobility services within the group’, Daimler says.
All three companies will be German co-determined stock corporations (“Aktiengesellschaften”) based in Stuttgart.
Daimler AG, the parent company, will exercise corporate governance, strategy and management functions and provide cross-divisional business services. This will also ensure that synergies [between the entities] remain as before, Daimler said. As an operational holding company, responsibility for the funding of the entire group will continue to lie with Daimler AG, as the only company in the corporate group to be listed on the stock exchange.
Daimler said there are no plans for the corporation to divest individual divisions.
