A Disastrous Decade Could End In Split

From a table on the terrace at the most exclusive restaurant on the banks of Lake Geneva, the deal seemed like such a good idea. The luxury and class of Mercedes combined with the mass-market appeal of Chrysler was supposed to create the world’s most popular cars and most profitable car company.

But Jörgen Schrempp, the former Mercedes Benz chief who instigated the $38 billion deal, and Bob Eaton, his Chrysler counterpart who agreed to it over dessert in that Lausanne eatery, could not have been more wrong.

Less than a decade after that historic and, some would say, excessive lunch, the 1998 merger of Germany’s Daimler Benz and Chrysler of the US has proven indigestible.

More than 40,000 jobs have been cut from the vast automotive empire, plants have been shuttered, assembly lines stopped.


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Sauceboy01 - 2/15/2007 1:13:30 PM

0 Boost

Interesting Article.

I think at this point though, we are not surprised how incompitent the US automotive manufacturers are.

At least i'm not.

Look at the people working at these plants. No one gives a rats ass. There is no SOUL left.

lewissalem - 2/16/2007 10:39:55 AM

+1 Boost

I was living in Detroit at the time the merger was happening. It was sold to us as a "merger of equals." Of course, this was a leverage buy-out. How many Americans are on the Board of Directors now, one I believe? Shareholding is only 16% American.

The company is about as American as lederhosen.

(This is no attack on German cars, BTW, I own one and love it)