General Motors Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra reportedly assured Opel employees and stakeholders that the carmaker will remain an independent company if a deal is reached to sell the unit to French automaker PSA Group. The report comes from German publication Manager Magazin, citing sources close to the two automakers. What “remaining independent” will mean in terms of operational structure and other details, however, is still rather unclear at the moment.
The news comes as GM and PSA are in ongoing negotiations that could result in PSA buying GM’s European Opel and Vauxhall brands along with the associated operations. The development could have significant ramifications on both automakers as well as the global auto industry.
The latest development to come from the negotiations is that Opel was valued at $2 billion in the sell-off discussions.
Comments
As you can see more and more there will be many defining details to this that will change the precievied aspect of this deal.
This is why we need to wait to get all the info before we pass judgment.
you must be part of the elite msm. in trump’s america, who needs facts and details? it is much better to rant/rave w/o any facts.
No I am just a rational person that does not go off half the info or info made up.
No need to play political BS here.
IF you have nothing automotive to state then STFU.
deplorable. learn some civility… that goes for papa trump too. stick to your alex jones/breitbart alternative universe if differing viewpoints bother you.
Steve: your comments have nothing to do with the subject matter at hand and do not contribute anything valuable to the discussion.
Consider this your first and only warning. After you continue, then you will not be allowed to post comments on GMA.
Alex
+1 Alex
Ms Barra assuring Opel about anything is laughable. Once the company is sold to PSA, PSA can do whatever they want to THEIR company.
Not if conditions are put into place during the sale or if GM remains a (minority) owner.
See post one.
We have a lot to be determined yet.
Well, methinks that out of these talks will emerge an alliance PSA/GM with a cross link of capital shares.
For the PSA motives for a closer integration with Opel, there is not only their concern to catch up with the other French national champion Renault and their Renault-Nissan-Alliance (which just integrated Mitsubishi Motors), but also the situation of the PSA offer of light commercial vehicles.
Well, methinks that out of these talks will emerge an alliance PSA/GM with a cross link of capital shares.
For the PSA motives for a closer integration with Opel, there is not only their concern to catch up with the other French national champion Renault and their Renault-Nissan-Alliance (which just integrated Mitsubishi Motors), but also the situation of the PSA offer of light commercial vehicles.
Renault and both PSA brands have always had a full range of light commercial vehicles on offer. PSA hat cooperated with FIAT on a number of them. but as FCA, Fiat is drifting away. PSA is co-developing with Opel a new LCV at the lower end (I assume a replacement for the FIAT sourced Peugeot Bipper and Citroën Nemo (based on the Fiat Fiorino), and might need also replacements for their Vivaro and Movano sized vans without FIAT. That possible partner could be Opel, but PSA would want to be sure that this collaboration is not running away some day, but is under control – hence the need for owning Opel.
And after the last payment GM’s words are null and void. The PSA / Opel deal reminds me of what can happen when I look at the Sears / K Mart deal.
At the very least, you’d have to guess that they’ll eliminate “redundancies” (backroom, finance, accounting, whatever else they can find).
Curious to see how the interplay works between Buick and the amended iteration of Opel.
I’d have thought Mitsubushi would have been a better fit for GM. On another note some of the fruits of GM PSA efforts are starting to appear namely in Crossland X & Grandland X, it would be interesting to see the views on if the Crossland X is hot or not.
Historically GM has had successful long partnerships with Japanise brands Isuzu & Suzuki, with Isuzu still dose. Mitsubushi in Europe has no car range so they’d be no overlap with Vauxhall & Opel (the Mirage being the only exception). Mitsubushi’s range of SUVs (ASX, Outlander, Shogun & L200 pick up) could of filled the niche GM craved much like the Frontera, Monterey & Brava pick up (all Isuzu based) did years ago.
Once PSA have control of Opel, all assurances to Gm will be in practice null and void. Don’t ever forget the high level of politics in this – the French government owns 14% of PSA and it will be calling the shots. Is GM really going to ever take PSA and the French government to court – in European court – if PSA reneges on agreements about ‘seperate company’, plant closures and so and so forth.
Musing on the rationale for this deal. 1) GM has given up the desire to be global company and is happy to be smaller firm, no longer a global front runner but believes that less will be more. 2) GM believes that Europe as a market or as an entity is a busted flush and that the global future lies in Asia, South America and North America.
Finally, how sad and pathetic to see the British government trying to make out it cares about the future of Vauxhall. I bet those meetings with PSA and GM that the Brit politicans had were all about trying to agree that the timing of the announcements for the inevitable closure of Ellesemere Port and Luton is late on a Saturday night when the Sunday papers have gone to press and no-one is watching the telly news.
I think you will see with the ever slowing growth in the auto industry you will see more targeting of large markets and greater growth areas.
The problem today many markets are just not flat profitable and even if you go global for some it is still not worth the investment when you can make develop a model or two and sell just as many cars in larger market and make twice the money.
Europe is becoming much like California. High taxes to pay for all the social programs. Heavy government regulations that hinder doing business and MFG.
Countries going bankrupt and other countries unable to do what they feel is best for them because a Euro Union tells them what they can or can’t do.
They now have a flood of refugees that now are taxing their social systems and next will be a lot of issues with groups not mixing well as many of the refugees do not want to assimilate to the culture they have moved into.
Doing business in Europe is difficult right now and will become even more difficult to expand.
Many large cities are wanting to heavily tax cars driven in town like London. Then you have cities like Paris that want to restrict the age of a car driven in town. Then some just want to eliminate cars all together or go all electric.
So GM has few options here as making Opel profitable would be difficult even if they started just selling rebadged VW’s. They need to find a way to make Opel profitable or at least not unprofitable to them. And that means it could be a joint venture, complete sale or a sale and then buy back.
Either way GM can survive with or without Europe. If you do not believe that then notice they have survived Europe with constant losses for how many years. Just not losing money would be an improvement.
What happened #LastNightInSweden ?
Is possible what GM/PSA wants convert Opel center of development to a hibrid/electrical platforms & techs for both companies??