MAN Blends Truck and Bus Businesses

In an attempt to become more effective, truck manufacturer MAN announced this week it will merge its truck an bus businesses in Mexico into one unit. Both sides of MAN's activities will fall under the rule of MAN Latin America.

"MAN's new business model in Mexico is a logical step in our internationalisation," MAN board member Jorg Schwitalla told just-auto.com. "Following the purchase of Volkswagen Truck & Bus at the end of 2008, we bundled activities in South Africa at one site in 2009. The integration in Mexico will strengthen our development in the Americas as a whole."

Several other changes of the Latin American operation are to follow as well. According to the source, MAN will fit, for the first time, a light truck model built at MAN's Mexican Queretaro plant with a home made engine.

The facility itself will be expanded to accommodate production of trucks wearing the Volkswagen badge. This means the relocation of some of the production from Puebla to Queretaro.

"We will be offering transportation solutions, as we already do throughout Latin America, with MAN and VW branded trucks and buses," MAN Latin America president Roberto Cortes told the source.

Back in 2008, MAN purchased VW's Brazilian truck subsidiary. Under the terms of the deal, MAN continued to sell trucks under the VW brand. According to the latest rumors, Volkswagen plans to increase its stake in MAN to more than 50 percent (from about 30 percent) and then merge the unit with Swedish Scania, creating a single commercial division of the group.