Daimler CEO Feared Confusion Over Deal

DaimlerChrysler Chief Executive Juergen Schrempp testified he had avoided saying in 1998 that Chrysler Corp. would become a division of the combined company to prevent confusion and opposition among workers -- not to deceive investors.

“If we would have gone and said Chrysler would have been a division, we would have had a tremendous problem with our people,” the executive said during testimony in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del. “The people would not have supported it.”

Schrempp is defending himself from billionaire Kirk Kerkorian’s claims that Daimler-Benz disguised its acquisition of the U.S. carmaker as a merger of equals. He testified that savvy investors would understand that organizing Chrysler as a division of the parent wasn’t a takeover, but employees might have missed the distinction.

From Bloomberg News