ABSTRACT
On 24 March 1993 Daimler-Benz AG announced that it had reached an agreement about accounting practices with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This agreement enabled the corporation to be the first German firm to directly list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange, beginning 5 October 1993. 1 Daimler’s decision represents more than the groundwork for a single, albeit large, financial transaction. It is also the choice of one financial system, the Anglo-American arm’s-length transactions model, over another, the Germanic model of relationship banking. The firm choosing in this case was the very one whose close, long-term, relationship with Germany’s largest bank has long exemplified the German system.
