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Scania MAN merger on hold

Swedish truckmaker Scania reported booming profits in its 2010 report published on Wednesday, advising that the proposed merger with Germany's MAN is on hold.

Published: 2 February 2011 15:28 CET
Scania MAN merger on hold

Scania said Wednesday posted 2010 annual profits up eightfold following recovery in the industry last year while the company, controlled by Germany’s Volkswagen, also said it saw flat demand for the year ahead.

Scania and Germany’s MAN “have been investigating a possible combination” since late last year but “no decision has been made, since there are a number of outstanding issues of a commercial and legal nature,” Scania said.

The CEO of MAN — a truck industry heavyweight which is 30 percent owned by Volksvagen and itself owns 13.4 percent of Scania — had told the company’s internal magazine Tuesday “it is completely logical to reinforce our cooperation” with Scania.

“But it is out of the question to do anything that could endanger our brand,” Pachta Reyhofen said.

German business newspaper Handelsblatt meanwhile said Wednesday “risks (had

surfaced) that could lead to … a reconsideration of Volkswagen’s entire strategy in the truck business.”

The paper, which noted both companies’ recent stock market gains as limiting merger possibilities, mentioned the possible opening by a Munich prosecutor of a corruption probe into MAN’s former subsidiary Ferrostaal and Brussel’s investigation into a truckmaker cartel.

Shortly after 2pm, Scania’s shares were down 6.20 percent to 134.6 kronor on a Stockholm stock exchange down 1.91 percent.

The company’s sales picked up in 2010 after a disastrous year in 2009 for the truck industry, which is extremely sensitive to the health of the global economy.

“Scania expects a level of demand in early 2011 similar to the level seen in the second half of 2010. The negative effects of the stronger krona, which impacted the fourth quarter of 2010, will be more pronounced during the first quarter of 2011,” the company said.

Scania’s net profit for 2010 was up eight times to 9.1 billion kronor ($1.42 billion), boosted by a sharp increase in sales, which were up 26 percent to 78.2 billion kronor, and a 91-percent leap in order bookings.

In the fourth quarter, the company’s net profit was 3.0 billion kronor, compared to 822 million kronor for the same period a year earlier thanks to sales up 22 percent.

The results are in line with the expectations of analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires, who expected sales up 23 percent and a net profit of 2.96 billion.

Scania had some 35,500 employees at the end of 2010, an increase of 3,200 from a year earlier.

It said it delivered 63,712 trucks last year, 20,163 of them in the fourth quarter.

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GOVERNMENT

Was Norway ill prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic?

A report from a Norwegian commission appointed to assess the country’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic has concluded that while the government handled the situation well, it was poorly prepared for the crisis.

Published: 14 April 2021 17:11 CEST
Was Norway ill prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic?
Photo by Eirik Skarstein on Unsplash

The 450-page report was submitted to Prime Minister Erna Solberg by medical professor Stener Kvinnsland, who led the review.

The commission found that, generally, Norway had handled the pandemic well compared to the rest of Europe. That was in part due to citizens taking infection control measures on board.

“After a year of pandemic, Norway is among the countries in Europe with the lowest mortality and lowest economic impact. The authorities could not have succeeded if the population had not supported the infection control measures;” the report states.

However, the commission’s report also outlined that Norway did not properly prepare itself for the pandemic.

“The authorities knew that a pandemic was the most likely national crisis to have the most negative consequences. Nevertheless, they were not prepared when the extensive and serious Covid-19 pandemic came,” it said.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg said during an interview with the commission, conducted as part of its work, that the government did not have an infection control strategy of its own.

“We had a ‘we have to deal with a difficult situation’ strategy. We had to do everything we could to gain control and get the infection down. It was really only at the end of March (2020) that we found the more long-term strategy,” she told the commission.

Low stocks of personal protective equipment were another source of criticism in the report.

“The government knew that it would in all probability be difficult to obtain infection control equipment in the event of a pandemic. Nevertheless, the warehouses were almost empty,” Kvinnsland said at a press conference.

Norwegian health authorities were praised for the swiftness with which they implemented infection control measures. But the commission said that the decision should have been formally made by the government, rather than the Norwegian Directorate of Health.

READ MORE: Norway saw fewer hospital patients in 2020 despite pandemic 

The implementation of restrictions in March 2020 was critiqued for failing to ensure that “infection control measures were in line with the constitution and human rights.”

One-fifth of municipalities in Norway lacked a functioning plan in the event of a pandemic according to the report, and the government did not provide enough support to municipalities.

“We believe that government paid too little attention to the municipalities. The municipalities were given much larger tasks than they could have prepared for,” Kvinnsland said.

The report was also critical of Norway’s lack of a plan for dealing with imported infections in autumn 2020.

“The government lacked a plan to deal with imported infections when there was a new wave of infections in Europe in the autumn of 2020,” the report found.

“When the government eased infection control measures towards the summer of 2020, they made many assessments individually. The government did not consider the sum of the reliefs and it had no plan to deal with increasing cross-border infection,” it added.

The report also concluded that Norway allowed itself to be too easily lobbied by business when deciding to ease border restrictions last summer.

The division of roles in handling aspects of the pandemic was scrutinised in the report. Here, the division of responsibilities between the Ministry of Health and Care Services, The Norwegian Directorate of Health and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health were unclear.

The prime minister has asked the commission to continue its work.

“We are not done with the pandemic yet. Therefore, it is natural that the commission submits a final report. There will also be topics where the learning points can only be drawn later,” Solberg said.  

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