European-American carmaker DaimlerChrysler, created in 1998 in a $36 billion merger, announced that it was selling 80


Monday 14th May 2007

European-American carmaker DaimlerChrysler, created in 1998 in a $36 billion merger, announced that it was selling 80.1 percent of the Chrysler group to the U.S. private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. Cerberus paid $7.4 billion in the deal, mostly in the form of investments in Chrysler; Daimler AG, as it was soon renamed, retained a 19.9 percent stake in the new company, known as Chrysler LLC. The sale marked the end of a troubled nine-year transatlantic relationship between Daimler-Benz, the German maker of the world-famous luxury automobile brand Mercedes-Benz, and the Chrysler Corporation, America’s third-largest car company. Though the much-buzzed-about merger, concluded in May 1998, had been touted as a pairing of equals, it was soon clear that it in fact amounted to a takeover by the German company. The end of Chrysler’s independence was a surprising twist after its near collapse in the 1970’s and stunning comeback in the 1980’s under the leadership of the former Ford executive Lee Iacocca.


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