Saturday 7th August 1999

Volvo announced it had agreed to acquire a majority share in Scania. The acquisition, for $7.5 billion (60.7 billion SEK), would have created the world’s second-largest manufacturer of heavy trucks, behind DaimlerChrysler. The cash for the deal came from Volvo selling its car division to Ford in January 1999. The deal eventually failed, after Scania’s board gained an agreement from Investor that better value could be gained from the two companies developing separately. Volvo subsequently sold its shares to Volkswagen and Investor sold a portion of its shares to Volkswagen, after pressure from both the EU and the Swedish government