OEM NEWS

VW SHOWS INTEREST IN ACQUIRING NAVISTAR

Attempting to grab a portion of the U.S. heavy truck market, Volkswagen recently offered to buy Navistar International Corp. for $2.9 billion. Unknown to many, the German automaker already owns roughly a 17-percent stake in Navistar (which was purchased in September, 2016), and hopes a complete acquisition will allow VW to compete strongly with North American big namers such as Daimler and Volvo. The timeliness of the proposed acquisition is perhaps the oddest part, as Navistar, Meritor and even Cummins have all announced plans late last year to cut jobs in light of what is believed to be a coming downturn in the heavy-duty truck market.