Word: mergers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...novelty has worn off--and with it the notion that DaimlerChrysler was a merger of equals. Just a year ago, the CEOs of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler Corp.--Jurgen Schrempp and Bob Eaton, respectively--made the surprise announcement that their two companies were going to combine. But Eaton, the executive who presided over Chrysler's transformation into America's hottest car company, ceded too much authority too early, giving the Germans an advantage in the high-stakes game of musical chairs that happens when two huge corporations marry...
This deal probably means a lot more to the world than money and ego. The largest industrial merger in history is a test of whether globalization can really bring together the leading capitalists of Europe and the U.S. Can fastidious Germans join with freewheeling Americans and teach the Japanese a lesson or two? Although only the world's fourth largest carmaker, DaimlerChrysler's $95 billion market capitalization looms over General Motors, and the company is sitting on $22 billion in cash. Its 440,000 employees make everything from cars and trucks to Airbuses, trains and ocean-liner engines...
...that jetlagged jawboning in the wrong language is taking its toll on top managers. The stress has already led to some marital de-mergers, including Schrempp's. The chain-smoking CEO is so determined to make DaimlerChrysler the world's No. 1 transportation-services company that he let his 35-year marriage collapse, because, as he told the German tabloid Bild last month, "the merger means more to me than anything in the world...
...deal was cast publicly as a "merger of equals" because neither Eaton nor Schrempp wanted to use the word acquisition. Schrempp feared it would touch off a xenophobic outcry in Washington. Eaton did not want to seem as if he'd just sold out. But Eaton blundered. He announced last May that he would step down as co-chairman within three years and turn the company over to Schrempp. Stallkamp, sensing what the consequences might be, pleaded with him not to say it, but Eaton wasn't swayed. "I believed strongly there should not be two CEOs," he explains...
From the start, the culture gap made DaimlerChrysler's post-marriage period of adjustment more difficult than that of any other merger around. When Stallkamp and two other Chrysler execs named Tom were introduced to their German counterparts, who by custom all use the title Doctor, Stallkamp broke the ice. "Titles are important in America too," he said. "'Tom' is the title you get when you have an M.B.A...