Daimler Trucks North America Stops Sterling Product Line

Daimler Trucks North America recently announced a comprehensive plan to adjust and strengthen company operations in response to continuing depressed demand across the industry and structural changes in the company’s core markets. That plan includes discontinuing the Sterling Trucks product line.

“It is a principle of our Global Excellence strategy to strive for benchmark profitability and to address structural market changes in a timely and consequent way,” said Andreas Renschler, member of the board of management of the Daimler AG, responsible for Daimler Trucks. “We are confident that this forward-looking strategy for Daimler is the right measure to address the challenges in the North American market.”

The Sterling Trucks brand will be discontinued effective in March 2009. Sterling models have substantial overlap with offerings in the Freightliner Trucks product line. Launched in 1998, Sterling has only achieved one-fourth of the Freightliner nameplate’s market penetration despite ongoing improvement initiatives and product launches.

Additions to the truck brands such as Freightliner and Western Star product ranges will be made to address market segments that have been served exclusively by Sterling offerings in the Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) stable. DTNA expects that the Sterling dealer network will continue to perform warranty repairs and maintenance services, supply replacement parts and provide technical support for Sterling Truck owners. Dealers will continue to accept orders until Jan. 15, 2009. New truck sales will continue until present dealer stocks are depleted.

By concentrating the company’s considerable technical and marketing resources on a more focused model lineup, DTNA expects to drive an even more attractive program of innovation in safety, environmental impact and user productivity that will further strengthen the leadership position of Daimler Trucks in the North American commercial vehicle market.

“Plans based on an expectation of brief, sharp market events driven by regulatory change, followed by periods of reasonable growth, are out of step with the emerging realities of the latter part of this decade,” said Chris Patterson, president and CEO of Daimler Trucks North America. “We’ve examined every part of our organization in light of the changed economic environment.”

As a result of the decision to discontinue the Sterling brand, the St. Thomas, Ontario, plant will cease truck manufacturing operations in March 2009, concurrent with the expiration of the existing agreement with the Canadian Auto Workers members employed there. The plant manufactures Sterling medium- and heavy-duty trucks.

DTNA will also close the Portland, Ore., truck manufacturing plant in June 2010, when current labor contracts expire. Western Star commercial production will be assigned to the company’s Santiago, Mexico plant, while production of Freightliner-branded military vehicles will take place at one of the company’s manufacturing facilities in the Carolinas by mid-year 2010. A migrating supplier base and high logistics costs have had a major impact on the cost of production in this location.

As a result of the measures cited above, DTNA expects to achieve annual earnings improvements of $900 million by 2011. An estimated 2,300 workers in the St. Thomas and Portland plants will be affected by mid-2010, on timelines related to the plant closures noted above. The company also plans to reduce its salaried workforce by approximately 1,200 positions, with more than half directly related to the Sterling brand.

“We are very mindful of the effects these decisions will have on the lives of many of our employees and

on our Sterling dealers’ businesses,” stated Patterson. “We are committed to taking measures to ease the transition for all those affected and to emphasize the support offered to those owning and operating Sterling Trucks in the wake of this announcement.”