The Board of Management and Supervisory Board of Daimler AG has approved a new corporate structure for Daimler AG. The new structure comprises three legally independent entities—Mercedes-Benz AG, Daimler Truck AG and Daimler Mobility AG—under the umbrella of Daimler AG.

In the fall of 2017 the first preparatory measures were initiated to transform the current divisions Cars and Vans, as well as Trucks and Buses, into legally independent entities. Under the new structure Daimler plans to give its divisions greater entrepreneurial freedom, position them even closer to their markets and customers, while empowering them to enter partnerships more easily and quickly.

Following approval by the Board of Management and Supervisory Board the corporation can now move into the implementation phase of what it calls “PROJECT FUTURE”. The steps toward implementation will be taken in 2018 and 2019. The measures approved by the boards today require the final approval of the shareholders as a next step. The new structure will be submitted for approval by shareholders at the Annual General Meeting of Daimler AG in 2019.

Once the new structure has been fully implemented, the Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans division, under the leadership of Mercedes-Benz AG, will have around 175,000 employees (status: end of March 2018) worldwide, while the Daimler Trucks & Buses division, under the leadership of Daimler Truck AG, will have around 100,000 employees worldwide.

Already legally independent, Daimler Financial Services AG will be called Daimler Mobility AG in the future. With its around 13,000 employees, the division today already stands for mobility services within the Group.

The operative businesses of Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans and Daimler Trucks & Buses will be transferred to the new legal entities. All three companies will be German co-determined stock corporations (“Aktiengesellschaften”) based in Stuttgart.

Daimler AG, the parent company, will exercise corporate governance, strategy and management functions and provide cross-divisional business services. This will also ensure that synergies [between the entities] remain as before. As an operational holding company, responsibility for the funding of the entire Group will continue to lie with Daimler AG, as the only company in the corporate group to be listed on the stock exchange. There are no plans for the corporation to divest individual divisions.

The one-time costs for the changes in our corporate structure until the year 2020 are expected to be in the high three-digit million euro range, including tax charges arising from the reorganizations required under corporate law. This includes Daimler’s investment in the reorganization of its global business in international markets. The implementation of PROJECT FUTURE will also incur additional running costs in the coming years.

These costs will increase until 2020 and peak at an annual amount in the very low three-digit millions of euros. Comprehensive initiatives will be concurrently introduced to reduce these costs step-by-step and offset them entirely in the medium-term.