“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer” is one of the oldest sayings in the book, but it’s still applicable in business today. A few years ago, BMW and Mercedes-Benz teamed up to create a series of enterprises to increase their brand awareness and create efficiencies. The highly competitive duo that do battle with models like the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class, is now selling one of its businesses to a division of Stellantis for an undisclosed sum. If successful, the German automakers will offload a struggling car-sharing business onto Stellantis, whose brands include Jeep, Dodge, Fiat, and Alfa Romeo. The automaker has already been purchasing companies to accelerate its EV development, so buying a car-sharing business isn’t entirely unheard of.
The deal, which still has to pass regulatory hurdles, gets BMW and Mercedes out of the car-sharing business, where they’ve both been for more than a decade. The German rivals teamed up in 2018 to combine their existing businesses and pool resources against rising newcomers like Uber. Share Now leads the industry in Europe but has struggled with profitability.
