VW Commercial Truck Unit Could Go Public

Volkswagen AG says its commercial truck group could acquire a truckmaker outside Europe and/or go public with an initial public offering.

“We’re keeping all options open" on both fronts, a spokeswoman tells Reuters.

In 2014 VW hired Andreas Renschler, former head of production for Mercedes-Benz, to integrate the group’s Scania and MAN heavy truck operations with VW’s existing commercial vehicles unit. Last year Manager Magazin cited unnamed sources who said VW might restructure its commercial truck business to prepare it for a spinoff.

Observers say the likelihood of spinning off the truck business is linked to the financial hit VW takes to resolve its admission last September that it rigged the diesel engines in 11 million of its vehicles to evade emission limits for oxides of nitrogen.

The company budged €6.7 billion ($7.5billion) last year to pay for repairing the vehicles. It has since developed relatively inexpensive fixes for the 8.5 million affected vehicles in Europe.

But VW faces tens of billions of dollars in fines, penalties and civil lawsuits linked to 580,000 of the cheater diesels it sold in the U.S. The magnitude of the company’s exposure in that market won’t be clarified until VW reaches agreement with American regulatory agencies about the steps required to fix the vehicles.