Daimler’s myTaxi said it will will merge with British rival Hailo in an all-share deal, creating Europe’s largest smartphone-based taxi-hailing business.
Unlike the US-based ride hailing start-up Uber, which established itself to compete against taxi companies, the new company will operate using taxi firms.
It is the latest push by traditional carmakers to enter the taxi ride hailing services market dominated by Uber and other technology companies.
The companies declined to disclose financial terms.
“It’s a paper deal. Daimler will own 60 per cent of the new entity and the stakeholders in Halio will own 40 per cent,” said the Halio chief executive Andrew Pinnington, who will be the chief executive of the combined company.
The merged entity, which will operate under the mytaxi brand, will have 70 million passengers and 100,000 registered taxi drivers in more than 50 cities across nine countries in Europe, the companies said.
In similar deals this year, Volkswagen took a US$300 million stake in Gett and General Motors invested $500m in Lyft.
Hailo, which operates in Britain, Ireland and Spain, will combine with myTaxi, which is available in Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
The combined company will be headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.
The MyTaxi founder Niclaus Mewes will take a seat on the supervisory board and in addition he will become the managing director of Daimler Mobility Services.
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Navdeep Suri, India's Ambassador to the UAE
There has been a longstanding need from the Indian community to have a religious premises where they can practise their beliefs. Currently there is a very, very small temple in Bur Dubai and the community has outgrown this. So this will be a major temple and open to all denominations and a place should reflect India’s diversity.
It fits so well into the UAE’s own commitment to tolerance and pluralism and coming in the year of tolerance gives it that extra dimension.
What we will see on April 20 is the foundation ceremony and we expect a pretty broad cross section of the Indian community to be present, both from the UAE and abroad. The Hindu group that is building the temple will have their holiest leader attending – and we expect very senior representation from the leadership of the UAE.
When the designs were taken to the leadership, there were two clear options. There was a New Jersey model with a rectangular structure with the temple recessed inside so it was not too visible from the outside and another was the Neasden temple in London with the spires in its classical shape. And they said: look we said we wanted a temple so it should look like a temple. So this should be a classical style temple in all its glory.
It is beautifully located - 30 minutes outside of Abu Dhabi and barely 45 minutes to Dubai so it serves the needs of both communities.
This is going to be the big temple where I expect people to come from across the country at major festivals and occasions.
It is hugely important – it will take a couple of years to complete given the scale. It is going to be remarkable and will contribute something not just to the landscape in terms of visual architecture but also to the ethos. Here will be a real representation of UAE’s pluralism.
