Truck and diesel engine maker MAN would be interested in closer cooperation with Volkswagen as part of its planned takeover of Scania, according to the dpa-AFX news agency.

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“Volkswagen would be welcomed as a shareholder of MAN,” said MAN chairman Hakan Samuelsson in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday (19 September). It would be an “interesting alternative” to the offer to acquire Scania shares as put forward by MAN on Monday.


MAN’s offer was rejected by Scania shareholders, which include Volkswagen, the largest single stakeholder in Scania with 34% voting rights and 18.7% of the capital.


Volkswagen said that its investment in Scania is of a “strategic nature” and that “acceptance of the takeover offer would not be in line with these industrial interests”.


MAN finance director Karlheinz Hornung expressed a similar view in Handelsblatt newspaper on Tueday when he said that it would be good to include Volkswagen’s heavy truck operations in Brazil in a new MAN-Scania.

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The offer MAN made on Monday valued Scania at EUR9.6bn. EUR7.5bn of this would have been cash and EUR2.1bn in new shares.


Current Scania shareholders would have been left with 16.64% of MAN capital, according to dpa-AFX.


According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, this would not have been a large enough stake for Volkswagen which would have been sought a more strategic meaningful position in a new MAN-Scania combine. This would require MAN to place a higher value on Scania.


Scania’s other major shareholder, Investor, is also apparently holding out for a higher offer.


While the German press appear to believe the three companies will find a solution and end up working together, the UK-based Financial Times on Tuesday warned of a number of more dramatic scenarios.


It said that some of the German company’s directors believe that MAN has opened itself to the threat of a takeover itself, by making an unsolicited bid for Scania. Alternatively some bankers believe that Scania may be the subject of a counter-bid by another major truck manufacturer. Another scenario is that Scania launches a counter-bid for MAN with VW and Investor’s support.