Daimler Truck shares trade at 28 euros on market debut By Reuters

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Shares in commercial vehicle maker Daimler (OTC:) Truck opened at 28 euros ($31.62) per share after its market debut on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on Friday, marking its long-awaited spinoff from Daimler AG (DE:).

Shareholders in Daimler received one share in Daimler Truck for every two Daimler shares they owned. Daimler, which will be renamed Mercedes-Benz AG, has kept 35% of Daimler Truck shares.

Daimler Truck is now the world’s largest truckmaker by revenue but lags behind competitors like Traton’s Scania and Volvo Group’s Volvo Trucks in terms of profit margins.

Performance is strongest in North America, where it reported an adjusted return on sales so far this year of 10.8%, compared to 7.2% in Asia and just 4.5% in Europe, it said on its Capital Markets Day in November.

Splitting off from Daimler will allow both the truck and bus maker, and the passenger car and van business Mercedes-Benz AG, to focus on their pure-play segments in the transition to electrification, Daimler’s leadership team has said.

“Now is when things really get going for Daimler Truck,” CEO Martin Daum said in a statement.

The truckmaker is targeting two-digit profit margins across the business in 2025, up from the expected 2021 margin of 6-8%.

Daimler Truck is in the middle of a heavy cost-cutting programme, including both personnel cuts and fixed cost reductions, which it expects to complete by 2023.

Its focus in coming years will be on boosting electric sales, which it hopes will constitute 60% of all sales by 2030.

($1 = 0.8854 euros)