European Union competition authorities will allow the sale of General Motor’s Opel division to France’s PSA Groupe to go through, according to a statement from Opel.
Currently, Opel is still a part of GM and its parent automaker has continued to make sizable investments into the brand. That fact has left GM with no choice than to bump the estimated selling charge to $5.5 billion—$1 billion more than initially anticipated. GM has already claimed the short-term expenses to unload the money-losing Opel brand outweigh the long-term financial benefits.
The sale of Opel includes the acquisition of GM Financial’s European operations by BNP Paribas and PSA Groupe, as well as Opel’s sister brand, Vauxhall, in the United Kingdom. Opel believes the acquisition may be completed by the end of July, but both PSA and GM originally set an end of 2017 timetable for the deal to close. The EU antitrust authorities must now review the total transaction.
In the process, Opel CEO Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann announced he would step down after the sale was final.
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