Press Release

2008/05/15 Focus on product-oriented workshop programs

• Merger of ZF Trading and SSO into ZF Services moves forward

ZF Sales and Service Organization (SSO) and ZF Trading joined forces at the start of this year to form the new "ZF Services" division of ZF Friedrichshafen AG. In the course of the merger process, it has been decided to make workshop programs more product-oriented and especially to make them more international in scope. Future-oriented development of the AutoCrew full-service program is not sufficiently compatible with this new direction. Instead, the company will focus on further expanding its product-oriented detailed programs, namely Original Sachs Service (OSS), Lemförder plus, and Boge Service. In addition, a program for the ZF Parts product group will be available for the independent parts market as soon as possible.

Alois Ludwig, Chairman of the Board of ZF Services, emphasized that "this is by no means a rejection of the AutoCrew program as such, because – thanks in part to the quality of its workshops – it has a market-oriented approach and is demonstrably successful. We will therefore take time to find an interested party who will continue to lead AutoCrew in the way we intended."

ZF Trading places a high priority on having the new owner not only maintain the AutoCrew brand name, its program contents, and the quality of the support it offers, but also continue to develop it with a future-oriented perspective based on market conditions. Partners from the workshop, industry, and service provider sectors have been informed about the launch of sales negotiations. This goes without saying given the strong partnership relations, notes AutoCrew managing director Thomas Bothe.

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