>I have to admit, Daimler handled the whole buyout with impressive savoir
>faire. American yahoos are fond of bashing Europeans as being plodders
>with overpriced labor and terrible management, but Juergen Schremp,
>Daimler's CEO, played the global card in his business-class English, used
>the M-word (merger) instead of the B-word (buyout) and swayed even the
>neonationalists on Wall Street with arguments that Daimler needs a
>transfusion of American biz acumen (which it doesn't, but you don't
>become a $70 billion global heavy industrial behemoth by telling your
>customers what they don't want to hear).
Dennis, I thought one of the reasons that Daimler listed its stock in New York a year or two ago was to hop aboard the American stock market/governance train - i.e., find a way to cut labor costs (and deflect the political heat for it onto U.S. stockholders).
Doug