Company Information

MAN company's car brand contain :MAN.

MAN AG is a German engineering company based in Munich.

MAN is one of Europe's leading manufacturers of engineering equipment and commercial vehicles. MAN supplies trucks, buses, diesel engines, turbomachinery, as well as industrial services and holds leading market positions in all its business areas. MAN AG is one of the top 30 companies listed on the German stock exchange (DAX). It also is the oldest company within the DAX. The company celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2008. In 2007, its 55,000 employees generated annual sales of around €15.5 billion in 120 different countries. The company has joint ventures and other cooperations with local companies in India, Poland, Turkey, and the United States.

MAN is securely positioned in the field of transport engineering, having won numerous prizes. Among those are the Truck of the Year award in 2006 as well as in 2008, the Bus of the Year award 2006, and recently, the German business Innovation Prize (Innovationspreis der deutschen Wirtschaft) in the Major Enterprises category for its innovative 32/40PGI gas engine.

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Company History

MAN traces its origins back to 1758, when the "St. Antony" ironworks commenced operation in Oberhausen, as the first heavy-industry enterprise in the Ruhr region. In 1808, the three ironworks "St. Antony", "Gute Hoffnung", and "Neue Essen" merged, to form the "Hüttengewerkschaft und Handlung Jacobi" (Iron Mining and Trading Company), Oberhausen, which is later renamed "Gute Hoffnungshütte" (GHH). In 1921, GHH bought up M.A.N., the South German predecessor of MAN.

In 1908, the "Vereinigte Maschinenfabrik Augsburg und Maschinenbaugesellschaft Nürnberg A.G.", Augsburg (United Machine Works Augsburg and Nuremberg Ltd.), which came into being through the 1898 merger of "Maschinenbau-AG Nürnberg" (founded 1841), and the "Maschinenfabrik Augsburg AG" (founded 1840) was renamed Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nürnberg AG, Augsburg, or short M.A.N.

The early predecessors of MAN were responsible for numerous technological innovations, such as the first German rotary printing press for newspapers, the first refrigerating machine "System Linde" (1873), and co-operation in the development of the Diesel engine 1893-97. Rudolf Diesel’s ingenious invention was in those years realized with the help of the engineers at the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg.

In 1924, the company showed a diesel truck at the Berlin Motor Show, which was purchased in numbers by the Bavarian Post Office.

During the 1930s, MAN marine diesels were produced under license in the U.S., and installed in fleet submarines, where they proved troublesome and unpopular in the Pacific War.

After the Second World War, M.A.N. GHH lost all its foreign operations and suffered heavy war damage. Allied Forces took control of all GHH companies and broke up the company, placing the steel production facilities into separate ownership. Thus the focus shifted towards the South German plants and commercial vehicles. In 1986, GHH was merged into MAN with its headquarters in Munich.

The MAN group took over the truck builder Steyr Nutzfahrzeuge AG of Vienna in Austria in 1991, (the firm was formerly know as Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG) which also has truck buildng works in Turkey (MAN-A.S.) and India (Shakti-MAN).

On 18 September 2006, MAN made a €10.3 billion offer for a takeover of Scania AB, one of the leading truck and bus companies in Sweden. MAN AG bought 15.6% of the voting shares in Scania AB. Volkswagen Group, Scania's largest shareholder, acquired a stake of 20% of MAN, and has since raised that stake to 29%. VW has a majority stake in Scania, owning over 51% of the company. It was widely expected that the two truck manufacturers would be combined, and that a combined MAN-Scania would also absorb Volkswagen's Brazilian heavy truck operations. A more recent interview with VW CEO Martin Winterkorn stated that VW has no immediate plans to attempt to merge Scania and MAN, but he would also not rule out a MAN takeover of VW's Brazilian heavy truck. It was also originally speculated that Volkswagen intended to acquire MAN Truck and Bus division by the end of 2008. This has not been officially confirmed and there has been no current action by VW in attempting to acquire MAN shares, or to buy the company's commercial vehicle division.

In 2008, MAN celebrates the 250th anniversary of the company, with a gala event in Munich, exhibitions in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, the corporate museum in Augsburg, and the Rheinisches Industriemuseum in Oberhausen. One highlight should be an "Oldtimer Truck Convoy" on a historical route from Munich over Augsburg to Nuremberg in June.