MAN has taken a 25 per cent stake in Sinotruk, the Chinese truck manufacturer, in a deal worth £481 million (560m euros).
Sinotruk is the leading producer of heavy trucks in China, holding approximately 20 per cent of the market and selling more than 100,000 heavy trucks in 2008.
As part of the deal MAN will license its TGA truck, engine, chassis and axles technologies as a basis for the production of a new truck series, as well as provide ongoing technical and management support to assist with production and localisation efforts.
This series will be manufactured at Sinotruk’s existing plants in China and will be superior to existing products in the marketplace in terms of quality and environmental compatibility, but competitively priced.
The parent company of Sinotruk, China National Heavy Duty Truck Corp built China’s first heavy truck in 1960 and purchased the truck technology of MAN’s subsidiary Steyr as early as 1984.
Håkan Samuelsson, chief executive of MAN SE, said: “MAN’s investment in Sinotruk lays the foundation for the joint development of a new heavy truck series tailored to emerging markets.”
