DaimlerChrysler takes full control of MTU unit
FRANKFURT -- DaimlerChrysler has agreed to buy the Brandenstein-Zeppelin family's nearly 5 percent stake in MTU Friedrichshafen, clearing the way to divest the heavy diesel unit, the carmaker said on Friday.
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"All family shareholders have submitted offers for DaimlerChrysler to buy their stakes in MTU Friedrichshafen. The supervisory board of DaimlerChrysler has approved the purchase," it said in a statement that gave no financial details.
DaimlerChrysler, which controlled 88 percent of MTU, last week announced that the third major shareholder in MTU, the founding Maybach family, had agreed to sell its 7.2 percent stake to the world's fifth-biggest carmaker.
DaimlerChrysler intends to sell the unit which it values at over 1 billion euros ($1.23 billion), but wide-ranging veto rights from the two founding families had complicated the disposal and led to a public clash.
Buying out the families heads off a legal battle that was brewing after the carmaker used its majority stake at an extraordinary shareholders meeting to approve liquidation of MTU and a shift of its operating assets into another firm to be sold at auction.
"Thanks to the constructive stance of all family shareholders, the liquidation of the company can now be avoided," it said.
German industrial group and truckmaker MAN will now restart talks with DaimlerChrysler about acquiring MTU, a MAN spokesman in Munich said.
MAN had broken off talks earlier this year after Daimler had clashed with family shareholders over the sale.
Daimler vetoed the families' plan to dispose of their stakes to U.S. private equity firm the Carlyle Group since Daimler wanted at least two bidders to achieve a higher price for the unit.
The matter took a political turn when German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's cabinet proposed the so-called "Lex MTU," which would extend existing legislation and require government approval to sell any company that generates even some revenue from the defense industry, such as MTU.
MTU manufactures diesel engines for ships, tanks and other heavy vehicles.
