A failure to turn around Opel and bring it to profitability will have “very serious” consequences for the division, its workers and for the PSA Groupe as a whole, said the automaker’s Chief Executive Carlos Tavares.
Opel struggled under General Motors, posting financial losses for well over a decade. The division was in the final stages of a turnaround under GM, but was sold prior to the complete execution of the plan.
PSA acquired Opel, along with sister brand Vauxhall, from General Motors earlier this year and has given the division until 2020 to return to profitability.
The plan involves putting Opel-Vauxhall vehicles onto PSA architectures to realize a 1.7 billion euro ($2.0 billion USD) in savings by acquiring the division.
“If it doesn’t succeed it will be very serious for the company and of course for the employees,” Tavares said on Thursday at a conference in Berlin.
At the time of this writing, $1 USD = 0.8494 euros.
Comments
This is music to my ears
And PSA has returned to Iran with Peugeot and soon Citroën brands, which PSA had to give up due to the US-imposed sanctions, and is investing in a factory in Algeria for a return to Africa and the Arab world.
We’lll see what comes out of it, and in how far PSA will and can introduce the Opel brand in those markets, too.
It’s a very clear message to the Opel-Vauxhall’s workers and unions: Don’t resist to the shift, the job cuts, plant closures because If it’s a failure, I won’t hesitate to shut down your company! If they would be stayed in GM and they would have made the same politic, Opel already would be saved!
Yes, GM needed to cut with a sharper knife. Plants needed to be closed, cut down to one shift.
Vehicles like Envision were needed three years ago, could have come from China as Mokka comes from S Korea.
Management had too many perks: iPad are never needed when a company has been loosing cash for 18 years!
As we see with Ford, Opel (& GM) needed more small global vehicles. This became easy once Opel and Chevrolet stopped competing in Europe. Small cars are not part of the Buick line up aside from Astra/Excelle. Opel needed to share with both Chevrolet and Buick if the plan was to keep the company a Europe only enterprise.
Cutting down jobs and production capacity , as under old GM strategy had no effect at all.
You need the people to switch a company, sth. GM never understood
Statement of the blindingly obvious by Tavares, but what might be of significance is where he chose to say it.
GM ran shy of confronting the German union barons, whereas Tavares seems to have no such qualms. In the GM era, Opel Group closed highly productive plants in Belgium (Antwerp) and the UK (Luton Car) and reconfigured others away from vehicle assembly (e.g. Szentgotthard) to prop up the German operation. When they eventually summoned the courage to shutter a German plant (Bochum), things had reached point whereby that plant was producing fewer Astras on 3 shifts than Vauxhall’s rival Ellesmere Port plant was producing across just 2 shifts.
The reality is that Opel Group still has at least 1 plant too many and that plant is in Germany. Hopefully, Tavares’ comments serve as a wake-up call for the German union barons and their members.
I do on the contrary strongly support my union in fighting for our rights and our standard of living.
Peugeot shut it’s UK – Coventry plant which was highly productive better than others in France and Spain.
So shutting a UK plant to save a German one might not be off the cards
The old Rootes plant in Ryton was shut down a little more than 10 years ago, at the end of 2006. The plant was “developed by the Rootes Group as a shadow factory in 1939 to produce aircraft engines for World War II” (en.Wikipedia).
Look it up as “Ryton plant” on en.wikipedia.org or as
“Usine PSA de Ryton” on fr.wikipedia.org
I think the statement on this plant being “highly productive better” than others is highly speculative, apparenly produced by resentment but not factual documentation.
You suggest that the Peugeot company on buying Chrysler Europe was following negative business policy.
I’m not a fan of French cars, & yes I’m also old enough to remember the crappy Talbots so part of hopes history don’t repeat itself. Hopefully this will be similar to the VAG takeover of Seat & Skoda in the 80’s, at first people were sceptical over VW’s plans & wondered how it would pan out. Now psa looks to be going in a similar direction (hopefully) & (hopefully quality will improve) time will tell.