MAN’s operating profit grew by 88 per cent to 762m euros in the first half of 2011. This increase is due mainly to MAN Truck & Bus, which contributed €274 million.
The group is in the process of being taken over by Volkswagen opening the way to greater cooperation with both VW and Scania.
Volkswagen has said that it expects supply chain saving of 200 million euros a year from a takeover of MAN.
In a letter to shareholders MAN chief executive Georg Pachta-Reyhofen said: “Closer cooperation will lead to substantial synergies in purchasing, development, and production and will therefore create significant value for all parties. MAN can better leverage the potential offered by globalization and technological change by working with these partners than on its own.
MAN, VW, and Scania are convinced of this industrial logic – bundling expertise and resources and therefore being more powerful together – for which we are the right partners, too.”
MAN Group’s return on sales rose from 6.0 per cent in the prior-year period to 9.6 per cent in the first six months of 2011. The European commercial vehicles business in particular improved significantly, making a 7.8 per cent return on sales.
MAN’s order intake in the first half of 2011 increased by 22 per cent year-on-year to €8.8 billion, and by 18 per cent in Q2. MAN Truck & Bus in particular recorded dynamic growth in the first six months, up 31 per cent to €4.8 billion.