While commerical vehicle build rates and freight volumes are on the upswing, suppliers to the commercial OEM and aftermarket face rising raw material costs and pressure from customers for lower prices and discounts, particularly as they increasingly look to source from cheap, overseas suppliers.
To help suppliers effectively deal with these issues, HDMA is pleased to partner once again with Kotler Marketing Group to offer their widely-acclaimed "Defending Price" workshop to commercial vehicle parts, services and raw material suppliers. Many HDMA members have already invested in this program and have found it to be extremely valuable to their organizations.
A majority of Magna International's Class A shareholders have already voted to support the auto parts and contract assembler's controversial plan to pay its founder a huge premium to loosen his control, a top executive has said.
Founder Frank Stronach, an Austrian immigrant who built the Aurora, Ontario-based conglomerate up from a one-man tooling business, stands to pocket US$863m in cash and stock in exchange for giving up his multiple voting shares and ceding control of the company, provided the plan gets approved by shareholders and regulators.
The Volvo Group delivered a total of 13,577 trucks (including Volvo Trucks, Mack, Renault Trucks, UK Trucks and Eicher) in May, up 44 percent year-on-year (up 4 percent month-on-month). For the year-to-date, Group deliveries remain up 25 percent at 63,546 units.
The largest increase in deliveries last month was seen in Asia, where the Group delivered a total of 4,179 trucks, up 90 percent year-on-year. Within this region the Middle East saw particularly strong growth of 262 percent to 821 units.
BAODING -- Great Wall Motor Co., Ltd. (SEHK: 2333) is dividing its sales network in terms of category, and its sedans, SUVs, and commercial vehicles will be sold in three separate net works across China, excluding Beijing, disclosed Jia Yaquan, vice president of the Hong Kong-listed automaker.
Now, the division has started in second- and third-tier cities, and the vice president explained that the Beijing market was too large to have a complete network layout, so it would not be involved in the division for the moment.
Russian truck-maker KamAZ plans to set up a joint venture (JV) in China by 2011, reports SKRIN Newswires. The company plans to invest around US$13 million in the country. KamAZ marketing director Ashot Arutyunyan said, "The Chinese partner is ready to invest in the project. At present, the two sides are examining concrete issues linked to the setting up of the JV and its functioning. The new venture should be engaged not only in the production of trucks, but also their distribution. This will lower risks linked to intellectual rights which are typical for the Chinese market."
The EBRD has completed the acquisition of a four percent equity stake in Russia's largest truck-maker, KamAZ, as part a long-term strategic plan agreed with the company's main shareholders and management to restructure one of the most complex industrial legacies of the Soviet era.
The EBRD's investment, made in close coordination with Daimler AG, brings the combined stake held by the two partners at this stage to 15 percent. The EBRD stake was bought from Troika Dialog, a leading Russian investment bank.