Navistar and Caterpillar announce joint venture

Navistar International Corporation and Caterpillar Inc. closed a joint venture transaction resulting in a new company, NC2 Global LLC, to serve the global commercial truck market. Navistar and Caterpillar first announced plans to form a joint venture in June 2008 and have identified the leadership team that will establish its headquarters in the Chicago area.

Bob Iacullo has been named chief financial officer for NC2. Formerly business resource manager for Caterpillar’s Infrastructure Product Development Division, Iacullo also held several executive positions in finance at Motorola.

Navistar and Caterpillar also have named key business unit directors for product development, sales and marketing, dealer operations, production, supply chain, and parts and service.

Navistar and Caterpillar each have named three people to NC2’s board of directors.

Caterpillar group president Doug Oberhelman will serve as chairman of the board and Navistar truck group president Dee Kapur has been named lead director from Navistar.

The 50/50 joint venture will develop, manufacture and distribute commercial trucks with an initial focus on markets in Australia, Brazil, China, Russia, South Africa and Turkey. NC2’s product line will feature conventional and cabover truck designs and will be sold under both the CAT and International (Navistar) brands.

Separately, Navistar and Caterpillar continue to work on design and development of a new proprietary, purpose-built, heavy-duty CAT vocational truck for the North American market. The trucks, manufactured in Navistar’s Garland, Texas facility, will be sold and serviced through the CAT North American Dealer network. Caterpillar vocational trucks are scheduled for full production in mid 2011.