Volkswagen made a voluntary tender offer of €22.26 per share to the shareholders of Scania Aktiebolag for all Scania A and Scania B shares. The offer for the 298,910,903 shares not currently held either indirectly or directly by Volkswagen amounts to a total of approximately €6.7 billion.
Volkswagen has been invested in Scania since 2000 and today indirectly and directly holds a total of 89.2 percent of the voting rights and 62.6 percent of the capital of the Swedish commercial vehicles company. Under the current ownership structure, however, it is not possible to leverage the full potential of closer cooperation at an operational level between Volkswagen and Scania, as well as between MAN and Scania, due to the legal restrictions in place to protect the minority shareholders in Scania (‘at arm’s length’ principle).
Above and beyond the previously communicated synergies of over €200 million that – as announced – will be achieved by the end of 2014, on average Volkswagen expects additional long-term synergy potential of at least €650 million operating profit per year within the integrated commercial vehicles group. However, in light of the long product lifecycles in the commercial vehicles industry, it will be 10 to 15 years before this potential can be fully leveraged.
There are no plans for structural changes at Scania, in particular in regard to its employees and the production locations and development centers. "Volkswagen has a long and successful tradition of carefully integrating strong brands into the Group while safeguarding their identity, their traditions, their unique strengths and a high degree of independence. What we have achieved with either Audi or Porsche we will attain with Scania. This means that Sweden, Scania’s locations, and above all the employees of Scania, will play a central and strategic role in the integrated commercial vehicles group", confirmed Group Chairman Winterkorn.
The acceptance period for the offer to Scania’s shareholders resolved today is expected to start on March 17, 2014 and end on April 25, 2014. The offer will be subject to, among others, the condition that Volkswagen through the offer becomes the owner of more than 90 percent of the total number of shares in Scania. After exceeding the threshold of 90 percent Volkswagen will perform a squeeze-out and promote delisting of the Scania shares from the stock exchange.
Volkswagen will use the Automotive Division’s existing net liquidity to pay for the shares tendered by shareholders under the offer.
