Volkswagen AG valued its heavy-trucks business at as much as US$18.6 billion in a planned initial public offering (IPO) that will test VW chief executive officer Herbert Diess’ ambition of overhauling the automaker.
The manufacturer intends to offer stock in Traton SE, which sells MAN and Scania AB vehicles, for between 27 euros and 33 euros per share, it said in a statement on Thursday, valuing the division at 13.5 billion euros to 16.5 billion euros (US$15.2 billion to US$18.6 billion).
It is set to be one of the year’s largest European public offerings.
While trade jitters and a slowing global economy have weighed on recent IPO deals, industrial companies like Switzerland’s Stadler Rail AG and Germany’s Knorr-Bremse AG, which listed in October last year, have fared well.
Listing Traton is management’s highest-profile and most notable move in a push to make the world’s largest automobile manufacturer more agile, which includes potential plans to shed assets, seek cooperation and free up units to make decisions.
Diess is considering selling operations that build ship engines and large transmissions while teaming up with Ford Motor Co on vans and likely electric and autonomous vehicles.
While seeking to allocate investments more efficiently, the moves are also aimed at increasing the company’s stock price and giving VW more financial flexibility. The company has committed to spending 44 billion euros through 2023 on electric and connected vehicles, with the payoff likely years away, leaving the company’s valuation to trail the broader market.
VW’s plans for Traton and with Ford would help create “currency” for the upcoming phase of industry consolidation, Diess told a gathering of top executives.
In the truck division alone, VW plans to challenge industry leaders Daimler AG and Volvo Group in markets such as North America and China. This might include potentially boosting its 16.8 percent stake in US peer Navistar International Corp.
“This IPO represents a much needed first step structural change at VW as the management team seeks to unlock value during a period of significant and transformational industry changes,” Evercore ISI analyst Arndt Ellinghorst said in a note.
Volkswagen shares trade at 6.2 times earnings, compared with an average multiple of 16.1 for Germany’s Dax companies. The company declined 0.6 percent to 141.94 euros at 9:49am in Frankfurt trading, paring gains this year to 2.2 percent.
Global stocks have struggled in recent weeks as trade frictions jeopardize global economic growth.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained