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Annual Meeting 2007
Counter-motions
As follows, you will find counter-motions from shareholders who oppose the proposals made by the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board on the
Agenda of the Annual Meeting on April 4, 2007, which the Company has to make accessible to all its shareholders.
Counter-Motions
9th Annual Meeting
of DaimlerChrysler AG
April 4, 2007, Berlin Trade Fair Center (Messe Berlin
Dear Shareholders,
For our Annual Meeting to be held in Berlin on April 4, 2007, some shareholders have submitted counter-motions to Agenda Items 3 and 4.
The following counter-motions are listed in the order they were received by DaimlerChrysler.
Jürgen Grässlin, Freiburg, Germany
Regarding Item 3 of the Agenda:
»The actions of the members of the Board of Management are not to be ratified.
Reason:
The Critical Shareholders' rejection of the Chrysler takeover has been proven right.
Former Board of Management Chairman Jürgen E. Schrempp's vision of 'Global Corporation DaimlerChrysler' was doomed to failure right from the start. For this
reason, we, the Critical Shareholders (KADC, Arndtstraße 31, 70197 Stuttgart, Germany; phone +49 711 608396; www.kritischeaktionaere.de and
www.juergengraesslin.com) voted against the merger with Chrysler Corporation at the Annual Meeting on September 18, 1998 - the only (!) shareholders' association
to do so. Already at that time, we insistently warned against the merger and insistently pointed out the following dangers in both verbal and written form:
* 'More than seventy percent of mergers do not achieve their goals. A large number of mergers have failed.'
* 'The top management is the real winner of the merger. Risk-free stock options promote the self-enrichment of Schrempp, Eaton & Co. With the merger, the
salaries of the Daimler Board of Management members were adjusted upwards. The difference in earnings in the new company between top management and employees
in production became much larger. While the Board of Management preached that employees should tighten their belts, they themselves were on the gravy train.'
* '100,000 jobs were at stake.'
* 'The merger slowed the anyway insufficient efforts to make the Daimler-Benz product range more ecological. Instead of implementing a technically feasible
reduction of fuel consumption by half, the range of cars was expanded by dinosaur vehicles of yesteryear.'
* 'Even after the merger with Chrysler, through its equity holdings Daimler remained the biggest German producer of weapons of war / armaments.'
(Excerpts from the leaflet distributed at the Extraordinary Shareholders' Meeting entitled 'Information on the Merger of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler').
Billions pulverized for Mitsubishi and Chrysler
What we warned against has all come true. If the Board of Management had taken the warnings of the Critical Shareholders seriously at that time, the Group -
and thus the shareholders - would have avoided billions in losses due to the mistaken corporate strategy. Several billion euros, pulverized to finance
so-called 'restructuring and turnaround programs' at Mitsubishi and Chrysler, could have been invested sensibly at Mercedes-Benz to create jobs and improve
quality.
Billions wasted through the delayed examination of all options
The members of the Board of Management failed to make the urgent decision to sell the Chrysler division in good time with as much profit as possible for
the shareholders and as socially acceptably as possible for the employees. In the years 2001 and 2003 alone, Chrysler posted losses totaling 5.8 billion
euros, which were missing at the Mercedes Car Group to improve quality, to develop more environmentally friendly vehicles, and thus to safeguard jobs. Already
at that time, what we DaimlerChrysler Critical Shareholders had warned against at an earlier date became clear. The Board of Management should have taken the
opportunity to sell the Chrysler division when it temporarily got into the black in 2004 and 2005 with profits of 1.4 and 1.5 billion euros respectively. Instead
of that, Dr. Dieter Zetsche reacted far too late and waited for Chrysler's latest loss of more than one billion euros in the year 2006. Not until the beginning
of 2007, and therefore far too late, the Chairman of the Board of Management announced that he intended to 'examine all options'.
Even if it is possible to sell Chrysler in the near future, the price will be far below the value of recent years, and tens of thousands of employees have
already been dismissed. Overall, the procedure of the DaimlerChrysler Board of Management is evidence of a completely mistaken assessment of the risks and
success prospects of the 'global corporation' and of their own lack of ability to step on the emergency brake in good time.
The Critical Shareholders demand the implementation of a series of actions.
Today, our company is in the self-induced strategy trap, out of which only sustainable and future-oriented decisions will lead. These include measures to be
taken in the short and medium term, the implementation of which must be socially acceptable for the employees: In addition to the immediate exit from Chrysler,
this means terminating, with no replacement, the Maybach production, making the entire vehicle range ecological, and concentrating on the core automobile
business with an exit from armaments production of warplanes, nuclear weapons carriers and cluster munitions, as well as inhuman weapons transfers. Only this
realignment of business policy will secure added value and maintain or add to the number of jobs, and thus also the continued existence of the Daimler
Group.«