MAN Nutzfahrzeuge will transfer part of its business involving high-speed engines to the group’s sister company, MAN Diesel. With effect from 1 January 2010, these activities will be integrated into MAN Diesel to form a Business Unit High Speed. The new Business Unit will offer diesel and gas engines in a performance range from 70 to 1,400 kW used in yachts, smaller working ships, locomotives and in decentralised energy supplies, for instance as emergency gensets. The MAN Diesel High Speed Business Unit will be based at the Nuremberg site, where engines will continue to be manufactured as previously by MAN Nutzfahrzeuge.
“High-speed engines fit into our product portfolio extremely well. On the one hand, we’re able to logically supplement our product range, while on the other we’re able to move into a new maritime segment that promises profitable growth for the future,” said Dr. Stephan Timmermann, the MAN Diesel Executive Board member who will in future be responsible for the High Speed business. In 2008, sales stood at around $309.3m. MAN Diesel is looking to double that figure by 2015. However, the high-speed engines business is also being affected by the economic crisis, and MAN Diesel anticipates a drop in sales of around 30 per cent in this sector for 2009. The High Speed Business Unit will be based in Nuremberg and will be in charge of development, sales and service for high-speed engines. Production will remain the responsibility of MAN Nutzfahrzeuge – with good reason, as Arnd Löttgen, the head of the new Business Unit, explains: “Our colleagues in Nuremberg have decades of experience in the large-scale production of engines and can therefore manufacture them at very low cost. It would consequently make no sense to set up a separate production facility in Augsburg. We can also harness shared synergies, for instance in development or purchasing.” Löttgen has until now been in charge of the Engines Business Unit of MAN Nutzfahrzeuge in Nuremberg and will move, along with some 100 staff from development and sales, to MAN Diesel.