A report published by French newspaper Le Monde citing the desire by French finance ministry officials for PSA Peugeot-Citroën to purchase GM’s Opel division has been brushed off by Opel officials as “pure speculation.” The news comes as PSA posts a 16.5 percent dive in sales for 2012. Opel has not, and tends not to, post its sales results, but we assume 2012 wasn’t much better. What we do know is that Opel’s share dropped from 7.3 percent to 6.7 percent within the first 11 months of 2012, according to Automotive News Europe.
French officials reportedly believe that with Opel, PSA will be able to tackle Volkswagen, which is the juggernaut in the European market, currently with a 24.9 percent market share in the region. While it’s an intriguing idea, it’s difficult to see such a scenario coming to life, given the current states of both automakers.
Comments
France invade Germany? That will be a first…
Seriously… More like GM buys PSA…
Here we go again! Same crap different day. PSA are having difficulty in keeping themselves going let alone “buying” another car maker of similar size.
The French Government who controls so much of French industry would love to take over a German Icon.
How the Germans will feel about it is another thing.
File this under some journalist in Europe wants to impress his editor with a crazy mid week headline.
The mathematics of all of this reads a bit like this to me:
GM(Opel) + PSA = madness^2
[sigh]