The German-US car giant DaimlerChrysler has posted weaker second quarter profits today but raised its full-year profit forecast thanks to a cash injection from its sale of shares in the aerospace group EADS.
The company is now banking on full-year earnings before interest and tax of about €8.5 billion (€11.5 billion), up from €5 billion last year.
DaimlerChrysler said it expected to earn €1.4 billion from the sale of a 7.5% stake in EADS, the parent company of aircraft maker Airbus, which saw its holdings reduced to 15%.
The carmaker's profit forecast was also boosted by a lower-than-expected expected charge of €2.5 billion related to the sale of its loss-making US arm, Chrysler, to the private equity firm Cerberus.
It had earlier put this figure at between three and four billion euros.
DaimlerChrysler said it was expecting its turnover for 2007 to remain stable compared with last year, when it came to about €99 billion, and for sales to hold steady as well, at some 2.1 million vehicles.
The company, which from October will be known only as Daimler, also said that in the future it planned to concentrate on the leading brand in its stable, Mercedes-Benz, and its market-leading truck division.
Despite pumping billions into Chrysler, which it bought in 1998, the group never managed to make a success of its foray into the US market.
