Rheinmetall to control military JV with MAN - paper
FRANKFURT, Oct 13 (Reuters) - German automotive and defence group Rheinmetall (RHMG.DE) will acquire a 51 percent stake in a joint venture with MAN's (MANG.DE) military vehicle business, the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) reported on Tuesday.
"We expect that we will conclude the talks by the end of the year," the newspaper cited sources from both companies as saying.
MAN Commercial Vehicles chief Anton Weinmann has confirmed comments from Rheinmetall CEO Klaus Eberhardt in March in the FTD that it was in talks over the joint production of armoured trucks for military use. [ID:nLO109343]
A spokesman for Rheinmetall reiterated Eberhardt's comments from March that the talks should conclude by year's end.
A MAN spokesman declined to give any more details.
Credit Suisse analyst Pascal Spano believed the deal could help Rheinmetall eventually divest its automotive division that contributed roughly half of the group's 3.87 billion euros ($5.72 billion) in revenue last year but was far less profitable than its Defence division.
"A potential deal with MAN could mark a pivotal step towards Rheinmetall's re-emergence as a pure play Defence company...We believe a potential deal could see Rheinmetall taking medium-term control of MAN's circa 700 million euros sales military truck business," he wrote on Friday.
"Besides operational synergies and the industrial logic of such a transaction, this would bring Rheinmetall closer to the circa 3 billion euro Defence revenue threshold management has repeatedly mentioned as a minimum revenue level before considering the sale of its Automotive assets," Spano added.
(Reporting by Christiaan Hetzner, Editing by Michael Shields)
