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Comment by laurencerowe | Hacker News Reader

Neither of these are still cars-to-trucks companies, they just share a brand.

Mercedes-Benz (cars and light commercial vehicles) spun out its heavy commercial vehicle business in 2021.

Volvo Group (heavy commercial vehicles, marine, industrial) sold its car operation to Ford in 1999, which then sold it to Geely in 2010.

Before them Rolls-Royce (aerospace, gas turbines, marine, nuclear) spun out its car business in 1973.

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Amusing little anecdote: The company used to be called Daimler, with Mercedes-Benz being a brand. As part of the split, the cars & vans unit renamed itself to Mercedes-Benz. Employees got little "Founding Member" stickers for their badges as a result - for a 100+ years old company :-)

Wonder how to they handle branding issues, though? For example infringement? They can’t possibly have all entities go after the offenders, they must coordinate that somehow? Not to mention logo or other branding changes.

Usually one company will own the trademarks and license them to the other, so only one of the companies is responsible for managing the IP. E.g. the Rolls-Royce IP is owned by Rolls-Royce (the aerospace company) and licensed to the company that builds Rolls-Royce-branded cars (currently BMW). The contracts probably stipulate whether and how the spin-off has to handle a logo redesign or whatever else.

If this blows your mind, have a look at how many different companies make and sell products under the Philips brand some time :-)

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