Daimler’s Chief Says He Had No ‘Secret Plan’ for Merger

DaimlerChrysler Chief Executive Juergen Schrempp denied Tuesday that he had had a secret plan to take over Chrysler Corp. as part of the 1998 combination of the U.S. carmaker with Germany’s Daimler-Benz.

Schrempp testified that the deal had been a merger of equals and rejected billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian’s claims that he had concealed plans to acquire Chrysler to appease U.S. officials and shareholders. A judge in Wilmington, Del., is hearing Kerkorian’s fraud claims.

“I never had a secret plan, and I could not have had a secret plan on my own,” Schrempp said. He noted that the company’s supervisory board oversaw his actions as DaimlerChrysler’s CEO and chairman of its management board.

Kerkorian, once Chrysler’s largest shareholder, is seeking as much as $3 billion in damages for stock losses stemming from the $36-billion combination, which hasn’t boosted returns as predicted. Shares of DaimlerChrysler, the world’s fifth-largest automaker, have fallen 53% since the November 1998 merger.

Daimler’s U.S. shares fell 27 cents to $41.44 on the New York Stock Exchange.