The Daimler-Benz and Chrysler merging forming the DaimlerChrysler AG had been a failure resulting to the selling of the Chrysler LLC group to the private equity, Cerberus Capital Management LP. However, even after losing its 80.1% stake at Chrysler, the German automaker retained the Chrysler name until yesterday as DaimlerChrysler AG becomes Daimler fading the merge in history.
The company's attempt to regain the Daimler name has aroused intense sentiments among the Germans who on the first place weren't pleased by the DaimlerChrysler name.
The executives and the members of the board want a one-line change in the order that reads: "The name of the corporation is Daimler AG. The registered office of the corporation is in Stuttgart."
In 1926, the Daimler group merged with Carl Friedrich Benz's company, and the straightforward renaming of the group surely caused outrage in the adherents from the automotive pioneer's company because their man's name had been slashed from the corporate name for the second time.
"A return to including the name of one of the founders, Benz, would ... constitute a certain degree of compensation for the many years of frustration for the employees, particularly in the traditional Benz plants, who deserve to find equal recognition...as the employees of the Daimler plants," shareholder Bernd Gans has submitted as a counterproposal.
Name suggestions had been made by shareholder Hans Diem during the Shareholders Extraordinary Meeting held in Berlin. He wanted to name the group Daimler-Benz AG, Benz-Daimler AG or even simply Benz AG.
"Problems might arise in connection with a change of name to Daimler AG because there is a vehicle manufacturer in England that has a license to use Daimler as the name of its vehicles," he added, referring to the nameplate on high-end Jaguar cars.
Diem had gained the sympathy of shareholder Wilm Diedrich Mueller.
"The word Benz should be just as clearly connected with the present corporation...as the word Daimler, but the word Benz has the unbeatable advantage compared with the word Daimler that it is shorter and consists of half as many syllables," he noted.
According to the company, legal aspects and strategic factors had been the basis of the Daimler name adoption plus the deal with Jaguar owned by Ford Motor Co., to use the Daimler name.
"The name Daimler has a high profile and evokes a high degree of confidence in the expertise of the corporation as a globally respected manufacturer of automobiles and commercial vehicles," it said in response to the counterproposals.
"With Daimler, we will also avoid overlaps between the name of the corporation and the most valuable automobile brand name in the world, Mercedes-Benz," it said, pointing out that all plants that make Mercedes-Benz cars will carry that name, too.