Click here to write a Letter to the Editor.
erman truck maker MAN AG secured European Union approval to buy Swedish competitor Scania AB and create Europe’s largest maker of commercial vehicles, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
The European Commission, the EU’s antitrust regulator, said the proposed merger will not harm competition for the sale of trucks and buses in the 25-nation EU, Bloomberg reported.
“The commission is satisfied that competition on price and technology will remain strong in the future on the bus and truck markets,” EC competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement, Bloomberg reported.
MAN, Europe’s third-largest truck maker, has set a Jan. 31 deadline for Scania investors to tender their shares in a 10.3 billion-euro (about $13.6 billion) hostile takeover bid. Scania has rejected the offer and said it may turn the tables on MAN with a counter-offer.
At stake is a European heavy-truck market that Scania has forecast will increase by more than a third to 390,000 vehicles within seven years, driven by economic growth in eastern Europe and Russia, Bloomberg said.
A combined company including Scania, Sweden's second-largest truck maker, would overtake DaimlerChrysler AG and Volvo AB as Europe's No. 1 maker of heavy-duty trucks, Bloomberg reported.
(Click here for previous coverage.)
