Daimler CEO Dr Dieter Zetsche next to a pylon with the company's new name

Selling off Chrysler meant losing the Jeep brand too

Following the October 4th approval by shareholders of DaimlerChrysler AG to rename the company Daimler AG, subsidiaries around the world will also have a change in name. However, virtually all overseas subsidiaries will not use the Daimler name and sales organizations that exclusively or primarily sell Mercedes-Benz products and will use the Mercedes-Benz name instead. This includes the subsidiary in Malaysia which will eventually be called Mercedes-Benz Malaysia (after various local regulatory processes are carried out).

The move to drop Chrysler from the corporate name has been necessitated since DaimlerChrysler sold off 80.1% of Chrysler Corporation to Cerberus Management in August 2007, bringing to an end the ‘merger of equals’ that was never really one. Though hailed as a historic development in the automobile industry in 1998, the US$36 billion marriage between an established carmaker with a 100-year history and one of America’s Big 3 with a very different culture was a recipe for the disaster that followed.

Apart from the Mercedes-Benz brand, Daimler AG has smart, Maybach, Freightliner, Sterling, Western Star, Mitsubishi Fuso, Setra, Thomas Built Buses and Orion in its stable. The disposal of Chrysler also meant loss of the Jeep, Plymouth and Dodge brands which had been originally in the Chrysler group. It’s interesting that Daimler did not negotiate to at least keep the Jeep brand which still has international potential (the way BMW retained the Mini brand and has made it a success).

“The strength of our brands is one of our most valuable assets," Dr Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler, told shareholders. "Clearly, one of our central tasks is to maintain and enhance that strength. Mercedes-Benz, for example, has the richest tradition of any automobile brand. It's also the world's most valuable premium automobile brand, and a recent study has revealed that it's still the most coveted automobile brand in Germany.”

The company name at the reception area of DaimlerChrysler Malaysia will be changed to Mercedes-Benz Malaysia in due course

According to Dr Zetsche, no other automobile brand shines as brightly as the Mercedes star. “For more than 80 years, Mercedes-Benz has been the company's business card in its dealings with customers all over the world. In the future, the brand with the star will continue to take center stage at the Group. As a result, the proud name of Benz will not only remain prominent, it will have significantly higher visibility," he said and this was in reference to the many demands for the retention of the name "Benz" in the company name that were expressed before the Extraordinary Shareholders' Meeting.

Unlike the ambitious vision of creating a dominant automotive giant which his predecessor, Jurgen Schrempp, had, Dr Zetsche said that “we are not striving to become the world's largest automotive company. Instead, our aim is to be one of the most respected and admired on a permanent basis”.