Daimler Truck Launches as Public Company
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To the clanging of a bell and the blasting of a truck air horn, Daimler Truck began trading Dec. 10 as an independent company on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the stock symbol DTG, marking a new era following its spinoff from Daimler AG.
Shares, traded in euros, opened at the equivalent of $31.57.
The truck maker in a release called its new status unrestricted entrepreneurial independence and probably the most important milestone in its 125-year history.
“Making this possible organizationally was a tour de force. My thanks therefore go to our entire team for their unparalleled commitment over the past weeks and months. So in this respect, today is a finish line for us. We have worked hard to get there,” Martin Daum, chairman of Daimler Truck Holding AG, said in the stock exchange hall in Frankfurt.
Daum added the launch also was “above all the exact opposite, namely a starting line. Because now things are really getting started for Daimler Truck.”
The company is starting off in a good position with respect to the balance sheet, said Jochen Goetz, chief financial officer of Daimler Truck Holding.
“It’s rock solid and we have already proven in the past how reliably we can generate an attractive cash flow. We are now putting all our energy into fully exploiting our earnings potential and driving forward the transformation to emission-free transport in a focused manner,” Goetz said.
Daimler Truck’s business activities are structured into five reporting segments for which the company has formulated concrete return targets for strong market conditions, or sales of 500,000 trucks globally.
For example, Daimler Truck is specifically targeting an adjusted return on sales of 12% for the Daimler Trucks North America segment in the event of strong market conditions. For the Mercedes-Benz segment, the target is 10% adjusted return on sales, for the Trucks Asia segment 9% and for the Daimler Buses segment 7.5%. With the new financial services business of Daimler Truck as a fifth segment, the company is targeting an adjusted return on equity of 14%
The company is one of the largest commercial vehicle manufacturers with a global reach, with more than 40 production facilities worldwide and more than 100,000 employees. Daimler Truck unites seven brands under its umbrella: BharatBenz, Freightliner, Fuso, Mercedes-Benz, Setra, Thomas Built Buses and Western Star.
Freightliner and Western Star are truck brands of Daimler Trucks North America.
Our CEO Martin Daum: “While I’m more familiar with truck horns, I was really proud to ring that special bell today. Now we are a listed, independent company. Many thanks to our great team!” #DTR0CK #ListedInFrankfurt #WeAreDaimlerTruck pic.twitter.com/UeK9piRZFi — Daimler Truck AG (@DaimlerTruck) December 10, 2021
Daimler Truck expects its shares to be listed in the Regulated Market of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in the DAX index, which has been expanded to 40 members, at the next possible date, probably in the first quarter of 2022.
In November, the company described what its new existence would look like in terms of products and performance.
At the time, Andreas Gorbach, Daimler Truck’s chief technology officer, said the truck of the future will be a programmable device. “Therefore we will push the next evolution of the mechatronic architecture [mechanical systems augmented with electronics] and develop a truck-dedicated software operating system,” he said.
Daimler intends to redirect the majority of spending on research and development to zero-emission vehicle technologies by 2025.
Gorbach said achieving total cost of operations parity with diesel is the most important factor in timing the shift to zero-emission vehicles.
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