Renault sells $4.2B stake in truck maker Volvo - Yahoo! News

Renault sells $4.2B stake in truck maker Volvo - Yahoo! News

Ok. This is where we need a handy laminated chart to figure out what's going on.

First, what Renault owned was not the automotive part of Volvo. The Chinese own that now; Ford did own it and recently sold it to the Chinese automaker Geely.

What Renault sold what their ownership in the still-Swedish-owned Volvo Truck.

Straighforward enough, you might say. Not really, because that's just the beginning of Renault's complex ownership structure.

Renault also owns 44% of Nissan. At the same time, Nissan owns 15% of Renault.

Let's bring in the Germans. I quote here directly from Renault:

"On April 17, 2010 the Renault-Nissan Alliance and Daimler AG announced a broad strategic cooperation that will enable both groups to already realize benefits quickly from a range of concrete projects as well as sharing of best practices. The two groups also announced an equity exchange that will give the Renault-Nissan Alliance a 3.1% stake in Daimler and Daimler a 3.1% in Renault and a 3.1% stake in Nissan."

Next. I'd never heard of AvtoVAZ before, but seems that they are the top Russian auto manufacturer. Renault owns 20% of AvtoVAZ.

Last but not least -- Fiat owns 35% of Chrysler.

I did find this, a chart of auto company/brand ownership, but it's from 2008, so the interest is primarily historical. It does give a nice feel for the complexity of it, though; the only problem is that it doesn't seem to pick up the 378 different auto companies in developing countries that are owned in part by one or the other of the EU-US-China-Japan-Korea cartel.

Checking with our in-house auto industry expert, Dr. Jeff Schultz -- his take is that the player to watch is Renault/Nissan, followed by Ford. He sees these two compnaies as having the best management of any of the major auto firms.

Employment Discrimination in Sweden

This was on Yahoo's front page, so I thought it might be a good idea for me to note a few things. First, this case is in Sweden. As the International Business folks have gotten very tired of hearing, culture and laws differ. True, there have been employment discrimination cases in the US where height requirements and other physical requirements have been struck down (as I recall, some were on gender and others I think on ethnicity). However, in the US cases, the finding was that the requirement wasn't something actually needed for the job [Note 1]. From what was reported here, it sound as though the minimum height requirement was a job requirement -- if a US employer could establish that efficiency or safety really did require the minimum heights, the employer would, I think, probably win the suit.

[Note 1]. The interesting case was with firefighters. Traditional selection requirements for that job included the ability to lift, I think, 250 or 300 pounds. When this requirement was challenged, and a job analysis actually performed, what came out was that the ability to lift that amount of weight wasn't essential; what was essential was the ability to carry a lesser amount over a distance. In other words, endurance rather than strength. Women actually do better on endurence than men. That doesn't mean that many women will qualify as firefighters -- it's not office work. But, if you think through it, doesn't it make sense to take the time to find out what the job really requires, and find people who meet those qualifications?