Fuso and Hino to merge

Today (May 5) the manufacturing giants Daimler Truck and Toyota Motor Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding to bring Hino and Mitsubishi Fuso under a single company to be jointly owned by Toyota and Daimler Truck.

The agreement is planned to be ratified by March 2024 and integrate the business by the end of that year.

Speaking first at the press conference to announce the merger, Koji Sato, CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation said: “Daimler Truck and Toyota will equally invest in the (listed) holding company of the merged MFTBC (Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus) and Hino. They will collaborate on the development of hydrogen and other CASE technologies to support the competitiveness of the new company.”

Hino has been under pressure recently due to the misrepresentation of emissions data from one of its engines and Toyota, which owns 50 per cent of the company, tried to distance itself from the problems, leaving Hino somewhat out in the cold.

Daimler took shares in MTSB in 2003 and now owns 89 per cent of that company.

At the press conference, Martin Daum, CEO of Daimler Truck said in part: “Scale is the key. It is absolutely essential to leverage investments and spread them across a larger base, and today we are making a bold move in this respect.

“We intend to combine the forces of two of the three largest commercial vehicle manufacturers in Japan and this will increase the scale dramatically. The combined Fuso/Hino business would have full access to the Daimler Trucks technology on the heavy-duty side.

“This merger will be a complete game changer.” He added.

Karl Deppen, CEO of MFTBC said the advancements into the future and the road to net zero emissions needs big companies

“To continue to offer our customers value while also staying successful ourselves, we need partners and we need industrial scale, and who better to tie-up with than Hino Motors, a company as dedicated to the commercial vehicle industry as ourselves,” he said.

“Together we will become a force. A strong Japanese company with a complimentary portfolio of products, a massive service and dealer network, and a workforce of highly dedicated and experienced employees across the globe,” Mr Deppen added.

Mr Deppen said that the merger will take time to get sorted out. “Merging two companies that have traditionally been competitors is, of course, a challenge. Despite everything we have in common, there is no denying we are two independent companies who have been in competition for a long time.

“But this collaboration can only work if we join as equals. Respecting each other, respecting each other’s strengths and working together to make the future brighter than either of us could find alone.”

Details on the scope and nature of the collaboration including the name, location, shareholding ratio and corporate structure of the new holding company will be decided over the course of the next 18 months.

The parties envisage signing definitive agreements in the first quarter of 2024 and aim to close the transaction by the end of 2024. Once all parties involved reach an agreement, they will move forward based on the approval of the relevant boards of directors, shareholders, and authorities.

We will bring you more details as they come to hand.