Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Cobalt Group-(CBLT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ian@SI who wrote (135)	10/9/2000 5:50:17 PM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 141

DaimlerChrysler Bundles Web Businesses, While German Court Upholds Option Plan STUTTGART, Germany -- DaimlerChrysler AG said Monday that it has bundled its Internet-business activities into a new unit called DCX Net, in a move to improve coordination and efficiency in purchasing and sales. DCX Net will operate as a holding company with start-up capital of $500 million, and will cooperate with specialist electronic-business companies, as well as making investments of its own. "The newly formed DCX Net will form e-business alliances, joint-ventures and promote e-activities through investment," said Eckhard Cordes, the board member responsible for the new company. Meanwhile, a German court on Monday upheld DaimlerChrysler's stock option plan for executives, rejecting a challenge by shareholder activists who charged it offered executives too easy a chance to make millions. A DaimlerChrysler shareholder meeting approved the plan for 6,500 executives last April, part of a growing trend among German-based companies to offer such programs in hopes of attracting top managers. The offer allows DaimlerChrysler managers worldwide to tap up to 96 million shares over the next five years. They can cash in shares when the company's stock rises 20% above a 2000 benchmark of 62.30 euros ($54.20). The newly minted DCX Net will cover all of DaimlerChrysler's e-business activities from business-to-business procurement to business-to-consumer transactions, the company said. The move follows U.S. and German regulatory approval last month of the joint business-to-business initiative of DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Renault SA. The initiative aims to cut purchasing costs in the auto industry by moving most of the order chain onto the Internet. DaimlerChrysler has already invested more than $290 million in the acquisition of stakes in B-to-B company Powerway Inc. and business-to-consumer company Cobalt Group Inc., according to information on DaimlerChrysler's Web site. DCX Net will maintain offices in New York; Detroit; Tokyo; Palo Alto, Calif.; and Stuttgart, the Web site said. The unit will also oversee DaimlerChrysler's interest in Venturepark, a pan-European e-business "incubator", in which Bertelsmann AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are also investors. Last week, DaimlerChrysler's supervisory board met in Michigan to consider new ways to wring additional synergies from its far-flung holdings, amid a backdrop of growing worry about its U.S. operations. The company has made much of the synergies it expected to achieve from Daimler's acquisition of Chrysler Corp. in 1998, and is now looking for further savings as a result of its acquisition of a 34% stake in Mitsubishi Motors Corp. last spring and the pending purchase of a 10% stake in Hyundai Motor Co. of Korea. DaimlerChrysler and the Japanese company have committed to jointly making a small car and are studying ways to cut costs by combining purchasing, and sharing research and manufacturing facilities.