The much-anticipated joint venture agreement between Foton and Daimler was officially signed in mid-July, but the topic after the two sides established a joint venture has been continuously refurbished. Among them, the "Fukuda won" statement is even more so in the moment.
This also needs to start from scratch.
As early as 2003, Foton Auto's parent company, Beiqi Holding, signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Dai-ke Company (former Daimler). The agreement includes: Dai-ke Company's acquisition of part of the legal person shares of Foton Motor; Medium and heavy truck joint ventures; discusses the possibility of business cooperation between large and medium-sized passenger vehicles.
However, due to Daimler's joint venture quota in China and the issue of equity transaction prices have not been resolved, until January 2009, the two parties finally ruled out the difficulties and in Berlin, Germany signed a "commercial vehicle cooperation agreement." After that, the project was formally reported to the National Development and Reform Commission.
However, after that, the road to approval of the project was extremely difficult. Recently, the person responsible for the project's approval of the National Development and Reform Commission's Industry Department told the "China Business" reporter that during the approval process, the two parties kept changing the contents of the original plan, of which the most changed was Daimler. According to the "Commercial Vehicle Cooperation Agreement" signed in 2009, the two parties will first set up a medium- and heavy-duty joint venture company in China, and then seek other similar cooperation projects in other emerging markets around the world. Both parties will adopt the joint venture company as a global cooperative business operation. The center will implement the distribution and industrialization of Futian products globally.
However, in the determination of the brand, Daimler raised an objection that the joint venture company is only responsible for the Futian Auman brand and cannot demonstrate the Daimler brand value. For this reason, Daimler is reluctant to incorporate the Foton brand heavy truck into its global commercial vehicle brand system for production and sales. In addition, Daimler has asked Daimler to seek approval from overseas for the construction of Foton Motor overseas, and Fukuda hopes to have greater autonomy in the joint venture.
"From the "Joint Venture Contract" signed on July 16, 2010, Daimler made concessions because the contract shows that the Futian brand in the joint venture company will be included in Daimler's global commercial vehicle brand system. , sales, and in the overseas market, will also be led by Futian Automobile under the support of Daimler." A government-level stakeholders told the "China Business" reporter, it is the Chinese heavy truck market in recent years, the continuous change Only then did Daimler make a concession move.
According to the source, in the first five months of 2010, the sales volume of the top five mainstream sales companies in China’s heavy truck market increased by more than 69% year-on-year, and even more than 200% of Dongfeng commercial vehicles and China National Heavy Duty Trucks increased. In addition, other heavy-duty truck giants also rushed in. In July 2009, the German MAN Group took a share of China National Heavy Duty Truck; in September of the same year, Guangzhou Automobile's Hino heavy truck went offline; subsequently, the heavy-duty truck project of the Dutch heavy truck giant DAF was announced in China... “A series of events Let Daimler realize that its commercial vehicle layout must be landed as soon as possible."
After Daimler concessions, the industry generally believes that Foton will benefit greatly from the joint venture's future development. However, at this time, some auto industry experts have stated that Daimler is actually “taking it backâ€. According to the above-mentioned personnel of the Development and Reform Commission’s Industry Department, “According to the positioning of the joint venture company in the future, both parties will have a lot of content to negotiate in the future. For example, whether Mercedes-Benz brand trucks will introduce joint ventures or not and master engine core technologies. Daimler will obviously play an increasingly important role."
In fact, despite the emergence of the Auman brand in the joint venture company, its image is mainly limited to the middle and low end, and in the high-end brand, Daimler will obviously have more room to expand, in order to increase the joint venture. The company's product image, Futian must rely on Daimler.
"Daimler is very smart. The "Joint Venture Contract" with Fukuda not only satisfies Fukuda's requirements for engine technology, but also makes it possible for itself to be able to retreat." Jia Xinguang, a well-known analyst in the automotive industry, believes that retreat, namely When China's high-end heavy-duty card market is not yet mature, Daimler can enjoy profit sharing by proposing Auman, and at the same time, it can also mitigate risks. As a result, Mercedes-Benz brand can take a big attack when China's high-end heavy truck market matures.
View related topics: Beiqi Futian, Futian Automobile brand value of 22.157 billion yuan
Valve Ball
Great Construction Engineering Machinery Co., Ltd. , http://www.cs-bearings.com