Following a spinoff from parent company Daimler AG, Daimler Truck began trading on the regulated Frankfurt Stock Exchange on Dec. 10. Amid the ringing of the bell and the sounding of a Mercedes-Benz Actros truck horn, shares of Daimler Truck opened at 28 euros ($31.57) under the stock symbol DTG.
As one of the largest commercial vehicle manufacturers, Daimler Truck has more than 40 main locations and more than 100,000 employees around the globe. Daimler Truck's businesses are structured in five reporting segments: Daimler Trucks North America with the truck brands Freightliner and Western Star and the school bus brand Thomas Built Buses; Trucks Asia with the FUSO and BharatBenz commercial vehicle brands; Mercedes-Benz with the truck brand of the same name; Daimler Buses with the Mercedes-Benz and Setra bus brands; and Daimler Truck's new financial services business. The product range in the truck segments includes light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles for long-distance, distribution, and construction traffic, and special-purpose municipal and vocational.
In preparation for the spinoff, Daimler Truck has maintained its intent to increase the performance and profitability of its segments. The company also emphasized its intent to improve profitability to lead the path to CO2-neutral transport.
The company plans to accelerate the development of battery-electric and fuel-cell vehicles, with electric vehicles accounting for up to 60% of Daimler Truck sales by 2030. By 2039, the company plans to offer only CO2-neutral vehicles.
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The company anticipates its shares will be listed among the top 40 largest companies in the DAX index in the first quarter of 2022, pending free flow market capitalization requirements.
"Today is a historic day for Daimler Truck: For 125 years, our truck and bus business was part of the Daimler Group—now we are becoming an independent, listed company,” Martin Daum, CEO of Daimler Truck Holding AG, said in the Frankfurt Stock Exchange hall on Dec. 10.
Daum called the event a “starting line,” as the now-independent company looks ahead “for even more entrepreneurial success.”
"Today, we are completing our spinoff; we are becoming a publicly listed company," Daum said. "This is a big step because it means two things—independence and responsibility. Independence and responsibility—that is what truckers love about their job when they hit the road in their vehicles anywhere in the world. And at Daimler Truck we love that as well: The independence to take our future into our own hands and the responsibility that comes with that independence."
Daimler Truck announced at its Capital Market Day in November the focus on increasing profitability is having an incremental effect already. In line with this, the company expects an adjusted return on sales in the industrial business of between 6% and 8% for 2021—despite semiconductor shortages and rising raw material prices. Daimler Truck also expects to achieve the 15% reduction in fixed costs in its industrial business (compared to 2019) as early as 2023, two years earlier than announced at the Strategy Day in May 2021.
For 2022, the company expects an adjusted return on sales of the industrial business between 7% and 9%.
