The Week in Review offers a snapshot of the most read stories of the week as seen on aftermarketNews. To access the complete stories, simply click on the highlighted links. If you missed reading one of our daily news emails, click on any of the dates listed at the bottom of the page to begin catching up on the latest industry news.
Will they or won’t they? The aftermarket industry has been buzzing for several months now over the pending Initial Public Offer (IPO) of Siemens VDO Automotive Corp. and subsequent reports of interested suitors. Readers of aftermarketNews (AMN) appear to be following this story closely.
The Munich, Germany-based company in January announced plans to sell between 25 and 49 percent of VDO on a public stock exchange. The company has remained focused on the IPO even as Continental and TRW Automotive continue to express interest in buying the business. Early this week, Continental AG confirmed its interest in buying Siemens VDO. However, today Siemens AG, parent company of Siemens VDO, announced it will proceed with an IPO in May.
Continental AG must be in buying mode. In another highly read story on AMN this week, industry analysts predicted that Goodyear will sell its Engineered Products Unit within the next few weeks, and Conti was again cited as a potential buyer.
AMN readers were also interested to learn this week that Pep Boys let its shareholder plan expire. According to one report, this could be an effort to discourage any takeover attempts.
Another highly read story this week told of some important personnel changes at AutoZone. The Memphis-based retail chain announced today that Tom Newbern has been promoted to the position of senior vice president of store operations. Newbern was most recently vice president of the southwest division. AutoZone also announced that a 30-year executive of OfficeMax, Larry Roesel will be joining the company as senior vice president of commercial. And, Charlie Pleas, most recently vice president, controller, has been promoted to senior vice president, controller.
To view all of the news from the past two weeks, simply click on the link for each corresponding day:
