Hakan samuelsson had been an exemplary boss of man, Europe's third-biggest truckmaker. After taking charge in 2005, he transformed it from a clunky conglomerate with interests from printing presses to spaceflight into a business focused on building trucks, turbines and the house-sized diesel engines that power more than three-quarters of the world's big ships. He also put in place a vigorous international expansion plan that included the purchase last year of Volkswagen's Brazilian heavy-truck business and this year of a 25% stake in Sinotruk, China's biggest maker of heavy trucks. Within five years, analysts expected man to be earning almost half its revenues in emerging markets. So when Mr Samuelsson abruptly stepped down on November 23rd it came as a shock to nearly everyone. Even his spokesman was on holiday.
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