Mercedes' Buy-Back

Mercedes after Mercedes after Mercedes. One might expect to see them at the Beverly Hills Hotel, or perhaps a drive-in movie in Kuwait--but at a factory's employee parking lot? Ah, but the factory belongs to the German automaker Daimler-Benz, whose employees may buy the company's prestigious product at a 21.5% discount. Last year Daimler-Benz's 129,000 workers snapped up 40,000 Mercedes, or 11.4% of total output. After one year, employees are free to resell their cars on the open market. These days they often get 10% more than they paid--and then turn around and buy another. Workers with ten years' seniority do not even have to wait for their new models.

Other customers do. Waiting time for a new Mercedes-Benz ranges from five months to 14 (for the relatively plebeian-priced $6,738 diesel 200 model), and would-be buyers who are not employees are getting annoyed. So Daimler-Benz has made an odd request: that employees sell their year-old models not to the highest bidder but to Mercedes dealers, who will recondition the cars and sell them. "We are appealing to our employees' sense of responsibility," says a company spokesman. "We point out that they will be helping to ensure the company's future if they take a few hundred marks less." The company has not denied rumors that it might tighten up the rules of the employee-purchase fringe benefit if its plea is not heeded.

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