I own a small amount of stock in Daimler-Chrysler (I prefer the Chrysler side of the equation. I was shocked when I opened up my proxy statement today and found a proposal submitted for voting, which detailed that the name of the corporation be returned to the old "Daimler-Benz AG" moniker, "not later than March 31, 2008", leaving Chrysler out of it completely.
To add insult to insult, the proposal went on to say things like, "Maintaining a corporate name that evokes associations with teh failure of the business combination with Chryselr is deterimental to the image of the corporation and its products....this... can only be borne at most for a short transition period until there is a peroper separation from Chrysler ... If a proper separation cannot be affected within on eyear, this would only serve to underscore the need to remove this affliction on the image from the corporation's name."
To be fair, this proposal came not from DC management, but from a couple of German shareholders by the names of Prof.Dr. Ekkehard Wenger and Dr. Leonhard Knoll. DC management, in the same proxy, stated, "The requested amendments... are neither necessary nor appropriate. The DaimlerChrysler name is established all over the world. There are no grounds to change the name of the corporation. "
This is, however, under the buzz about DC looking for someone to buy off its currently money losing Chrysler branch - at a big loss. It may still happen. However I'd also like to point out that when Daimler "merged" with Chrysler, the American firm was the most profitable automaker in the world. The Mercedes division was losing money. Susequent problems at Chrysler were not unique among American automakers, but perhaps have been compounded by Daimler's inability (or unwillingness) to truly merge the two companies and gain synergistic benefits from sharing both engineering and styling talent.
That these proposals, which look like they won't pass, have come up at all is somewhat indicative of a strong anti-Chrysler sentiment within the old Daimler-Benz company. I suppose it's part of the general disdain that Germans have for American products - but it's worth noting that Mercedes vehicles generally score near the bottom of Consumer Reports' reliabiity surveys.
What does this have to do with appliances? Not much, but it is somewhat familiar - we've seen Maytag swallowed up recently by Whirlpool, and many other appliance makers have fallen by the wayside over the years, only to be kept alive in name only as rebadged parent corporation products.
Personally, I'd be happier if Chrysler were to become an independent corporation again, but I think the Mercedes side of DC has really goofed on this one - they had a great opportunity to produce a stunning world car, by combining German engineering with American manufacturing efficiency, and blew it. It may be too late to recover, but I hope we'll be seeing Chrysler products in showrooms from some time to come.
What success Chrysler has had in the past couple year has in fact been in part due to greater cooperation between the two companies - for example, the best selling Chrysler 300 sedan utilizes Mercedes suspension, albeit from a dated model. But it may be too little, too late.
To add insult to insult, the proposal went on to say things like, "Maintaining a corporate name that evokes associations with teh failure of the business combination with Chryselr is deterimental to the image of the corporation and its products....this... can only be borne at most for a short transition period until there is a peroper separation from Chrysler ... If a proper separation cannot be affected within on eyear, this would only serve to underscore the need to remove this affliction on the image from the corporation's name."
To be fair, this proposal came not from DC management, but from a couple of German shareholders by the names of Prof.Dr. Ekkehard Wenger and Dr. Leonhard Knoll. DC management, in the same proxy, stated, "The requested amendments... are neither necessary nor appropriate. The DaimlerChrysler name is established all over the world. There are no grounds to change the name of the corporation. "
This is, however, under the buzz about DC looking for someone to buy off its currently money losing Chrysler branch - at a big loss. It may still happen. However I'd also like to point out that when Daimler "merged" with Chrysler, the American firm was the most profitable automaker in the world. The Mercedes division was losing money. Susequent problems at Chrysler were not unique among American automakers, but perhaps have been compounded by Daimler's inability (or unwillingness) to truly merge the two companies and gain synergistic benefits from sharing both engineering and styling talent.
That these proposals, which look like they won't pass, have come up at all is somewhat indicative of a strong anti-Chrysler sentiment within the old Daimler-Benz company. I suppose it's part of the general disdain that Germans have for American products - but it's worth noting that Mercedes vehicles generally score near the bottom of Consumer Reports' reliabiity surveys.
What does this have to do with appliances? Not much, but it is somewhat familiar - we've seen Maytag swallowed up recently by Whirlpool, and many other appliance makers have fallen by the wayside over the years, only to be kept alive in name only as rebadged parent corporation products.
Personally, I'd be happier if Chrysler were to become an independent corporation again, but I think the Mercedes side of DC has really goofed on this one - they had a great opportunity to produce a stunning world car, by combining German engineering with American manufacturing efficiency, and blew it. It may be too late to recover, but I hope we'll be seeing Chrysler products in showrooms from some time to come.
What success Chrysler has had in the past couple year has in fact been in part due to greater cooperation between the two companies - for example, the best selling Chrysler 300 sedan utilizes Mercedes suspension, albeit from a dated model. But it may be too little, too late.
