I've never seen such press release. That sounds totally against the announcements at St Louis meeting, where AGCO announced the cornerstone brands. The three cornerstone brands AGCO, Massey and Challengers with full product line expansion avialable for each brand. There are conflicts where there are over lapping territories - as in my town. We have been the Hesston and White planter dealer. The Massey dealer will not get the White Planter or Hesston Commercial Hay Products. They will still be offering the Hesston, Sunflower and individual contracts to other dealers at this time that sell another major brand, for example JD and Sunflower. They will be working in the future to get full-line delears in these areas or converting dealers to full line dealers. AGCO wants equal representation of all product lines in all areas. And I can totally agree with that. They stated the time has come to obtain growth through increased marketshare versus aquistions. AGCO is increasing R&D dollars dramtically for the future - for more new innovations. We are excited about the products we have today and even more excited about what new products are coming in the near future!

I have read some of the articles by the press from the St Louis Intro and they are not exactly what was done. But the press never misrepresents anything.

Why would  AGCO get rid of the company with some of the highest growth number in recent years! Especially in the High Horsepower Market over 100 PTO HP. In 2004 the AGCO brand had 112.6% growth versus the market growth of 29.4%. In 2005 AGCO Brand grew another 15.5% versus the market of 1.4%. The 40-100 HP has seen double digit growth for the AGCO brand in both 2004 and 2005. The PowerMAXX CVT is one of the big reasons for this growth. The market is not getting bigger but the AGCO brand of the market is.