GM is facing yet more legal challenges as it works towards selling the GM Talegaon plant located in the industrial area of Pune, in Maharashtra, India. The latest setbacks were handed down by the Maharashtra government, which opposed the deal to sell the facility to Great Wall Motors. The deal was also opposed in a recent ruling from the Bombay High Court.
GM has been in the process of selling the GM Talegaon plant for almost five years. Now, according to recent report from The Economic Times, the term sheet regarding sale of the facility to Chinese automaker Great Wall Motors is set to expire at the end of the month. The deal has been in limbo as the GM legal team works through the legal requirements to push the deal forward.
GM dealer in India in 2014
Further complications were recently handed down by the Maharashtra government, which opposed closure of the GM Talegaon plant. In addition, the Bombay High Court has dismissed a plea filed by GM India that challenges rejection of the application for closure of the facility. The deal was also rejected by the Labor Minister, Maharashtra State, and the authority under the Industrial Dispute Act.
A GM spokesperson recently told The Economic Times that GM India was confident in its legal position, and that the team was pursuing its various legal options. GM has also argued that state authorities did not consider the timely need to close the facility, and argued that it could not be forced to operate the facility at a loss. According to The Economic Times report, GM’s accumulated losses as of March, 2020 were over 8,480 crore.
Members of the General Motors Employees Union have also opposed the plant closure, saying that the terms and conditions of the deal have been suppressed. When the case was originally filed, the plant included some 1,578 permanent staff and an estimated 2,000 contract staff.
The deal was originally filed under a term sheet in January of 2020 to transfer the manufacturing facility to Great Wall Motors. It was believed the facility would sell for between $250 million and $300 million. However several factors worked to slow the deal’s conclusion, including the COVID-19 pandemic and a state-wide slowdown in Chinese investment following border violence between the two nations.
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Comments
They should sell it for pennies on the dollar like they did with their Lordstown complex.
Then a new competitor can use it to complete with GM. Just like what is happening at Lordstown.
Will Mary Barry put GM into another bankruptcy with this ‘leadership’?
GM retired:
GM has a hard time like Caterpillar managing their plants with third and fourth generation militant UAW workforces. That’s why GM and CAT love Texas. Musk also loves Texas due to business and political culture. In Illinois and California the business and political culture has turned hostile.
California is a nightmare disaster for manufacturers due to politics, regulations and tax structure. Caterpillar, Ford, GM, IBM, exited California due to this. Even Musk wants out of California that’s why he has built big facilities in Texas and Nevada. Caterpillar loves Texas so much they moved their headquarters to Dallas. Musk moved his headquarters and Space X to Texas and now lives in the Lone Star State.
Musk did hit a home run with bases loaded when he purchased GM’s Fremont, California assembly plant for $45 million to build Teslas. The raw land value is worth 3 to 4 X’s the price he paid with the values of California real estate. Both Tesla assembly plants are roaring. This has put the fear of Jesus into GM, Ford and the European automakers to produce EV’s.
Maybe pitch it to VinFast for $150 million. Win – win for everybody.
What’s going on in this plant?
Production of GM brands? Or do the 1500 workers simply check in in the morning and follow private interests im the mean time?
The sail to Great Wall had failed because the Chinese company wanted just the hardware of the plant while the workers insisted that their employment contracts should be part of the sales deal, together with the same wage scale than under GM/SAIC.
David Allan Murray
Texas is a republican $hit hole waiting to collapse. Every highway in Dallass is a toll road. Not on the electric grid proved the beginning of failure in cold weather. Taxes are unrealistic. Heat is unbearable in summer months. Flash floods in Houston when it rains.
It may be blooming now, but will fail as the infrastructures start to fail.