Daimler's Ola Kallenius is making a dramatic move to win over investors who have knocked the automaker for keeping its luxury-car and commercial-vehicle operations under one roof.
The Mercedes-Benz maker plans to distribute a majority of its Daimler Truck unit to shareholders by year-end, expecting it will quickly qualify for Germany's benchmark stock index. Its most iconic brand also will become the name of the auto company, a move that underscores the CEO's desire for a clear separation of the two businesses.
For Kallenius, it's a split in more ways than one.
The decision to fundamentally change the company's structure marks a major break from his predecessor, Dieter Zetsche, who was pressured in the wake of Daimler's divorce from Chrysler to make deeper changes.
Zetsche rejected the car-truck separation idea, arguing that a broader industrial presence would offer more protection against swings in individual market segments.
Kallenius ma…