Freightliner to pay $670 million for Western Star

PORTLAND, Ore. (July 19, 2000) — Freightliner LLC, the North American truck-making division of DaimlerChrysler AG, formally announced plans to buy Western Star Trucks Holdings.

Freightliner will offer to purchase all outstanding shares of Western Star at $42 per share, for an approximate purchase price of $670 million.

The Western Star brand name and truck line will continue in the market, while Western Star’s support operations will be integrated with Freightliner’s vocational truck division Sterling Trucks, according to Freightliner LLC president and CEO Jim Hebe.

The two product lines fulfill Freightliner’s strategy to offer a full truck line to owner-operators as well as expand the company’s vocational truck offerings, he said.

As part of the proposed acquisition, Freightliner would gain a 460,000-square-foot truck manufacturing plant which opened in March in North Charleston, S.C., with the capacity to produce up to 20,000 units per year. The proposed acquisition also includes Western Star’s headquarters and truck plant in Kelowna, B.C., and bus manufacturing sites in Mississauga, Ont., and Oriskany, N.Y.

Western Star sold nearly 7200 trucks and 800 buses in 1999, with revenues of $1.3 billion.