After a day of
worker protests across Europe at various General Motors plants, news comes today from Carl-Peter Foster (above), head of GM Europe, that Opel is planning to reorganize itself as a joint-stock company. GM would basically give up between 25-50 percent of its stake in the spun off company, with the hope that outside investors would make up the rest. The reorg would also likely include concessions by workers for lower pay as well as a restructuring plan to lower operating costs. The main obstacle to separating Opel from GM in the past has been the degree to which the two are intertwined, but a joint-stock company in which GM remains the largest shareholder allows the two to operate as closely as ever while severing some of those ties that bind. It may also set the stage for a detangling of Opel's models from GM's product portfolio over time, which would facilitate the outright separation of the brand from its parent company in the future.
In the meantime, Opel needs approximately 3.3 billion euros or $4.2 billion USD to stay solvent and GM is in talks with governments in Spain, the UK and Germany about receiving government aid. Opel is also submitting a business plan by the end of next week to four German states in which it operates plants, and the German federal government headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel will receive a similar plan by this Monday, March 2.
[Source:
Bloomberg | Photo by THOMAS LOHNES/AFP/Getty]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Sea Urchin 12:07PM (2/27/2009)
GM is DONE, all thatnk to Wagoner and the boyz.
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Sea Urchin 12:07PM (2/27/2009)
All thanks to Wagoner and the boys.
Mr.Oak 12:21PM (2/27/2009)
You are idiot. You really think that Opel is what's been keeping GM alive for over 100 years? Quit your griping, GM in India, China, South Africa all new markets for GM, will more than replace Europe.
Times are difficult right now industry wide. Some things may not be in GM's control . They could always increase their holdings again, when the economic situation improves.
Sea Urchin 12:27PM (2/27/2009)
I am sorry Mr Oak, but an idiot is a person who approves spending billions of dollars into things that will never materialize,
Like outfitting cars with ethanol culpability when not a single person in USA buys a car based on its usage of ethanol.
Outfitting cars with Mild Hybrid system, and a two mode system, which costs millions to develop and returned ZERO dividends.
And investing billions into a small car company, losing all that money and a year later nearly dying because you lack good small cars. (Fiat)
TBlueMax 12:49PM (2/27/2009)
@Sea Urchin: "Outfitting cars with Mild Hybrid system, and a two mode system, which costs millions to develop and returned ZERO dividends."
The automakers (all of them... Toyota, Honda, GM, Ford, et al.) didn't develop hybrids and alt. fuel vehicles in the hopes of generating windfall profits but as a means of meeting current/future CAFE and Euro standards. To imply that hybrid powertrain systems were a waste because they have not generated profits equal or greater than costs is a myopic view at best.
E85 did seem to be more of a marketing angle than a fuel solution and the partnership with Fiat proved to be a costly mistake.
http://www.autoblog.com/2005/02/13/gm-pays-fiat-2-billion/
Mr.Oak 1:40PM (2/27/2009)
Urchin again you show your ignorance.
Ethanol is not the problem, it much cleaner than petroleum based fuels.
The problem is the choice of corn as the primary crop. The yield per acre is the lowest of the easily grown US crops. Globally, corn doesn't even rank in the top 30 crops in yield per acre.
I am also researching the SugarBeet, it should also have a higher yield per acre. It also has the advantage of naturally creating sugar. This is an added production step with corn, since you must first convert the corn to sugar before making it into ethanol.
Corn also has the longest time of planting to harvest of the crops listed below.
Oil Seed Crop Yield (Gal Oil/ Acre)
Rapeseed/Canola 122
Peanut 109
Soy 46
Corn 18
Do your research, Ethanol is not the problem, Corn is. Brazil chose the right crop for their climate (sugarcane), and is doing just fine on ethanol. It even helped them pay down their national debt.
Sea Urchin 2:04PM (2/27/2009)
Mr Oak, i wasn't referring to corn or no corn, I was referring to the fact that GM spend millions on ethanol based cars.......something consumer does not care for. That very same consumer would have bought a GM vehicle regardless of its ability to use ethanol.
Jimbo 2:20PM (2/27/2009)
Urchin: The problem is not that consumers don't care for ethanol. It's that other than in MN, there are few areas to fuel up with E85. Why buy an E85 vehicle if you've got nowhere to to go to get E85?
Sea Urchin 2:26PM (2/27/2009)
Jimbo, but that IS my point. Why spend million on technology that as you point out can not be used by most people in USA. That money would have been handy now.
If you combine all these silly projects together, it comes out to a few billion dollars, money so desperately needed.
That Fiat fiasco was even more painful because not only did GM lose 2+ billion on it, had GM kept the partnership they actually could have used Fiats cars in USA when oil was thru the roof. People abandoned GM because it had no fun small cars………….Fiat maybe a bad company, but they do fun, EFFICIENT small cars.
Yikes 2:27PM (2/27/2009)
GM makes Flex fuel vehicles so they can artifically boost their CAFE numbers. All this flexfuel B.S. is just a government welfare program to help Detroit CAFE numbers. No one cares if a single car ever got one drop of E85 fuel.
jv2k 3:35PM (2/27/2009)
Now correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the engines just capable of running ethonal and can run on normal gas?
Isn't this a case of gm looking ahead at a fuel source that is something that people are trying to push towards(despite current impracticalities)?
So you criticize GM daily for not looking ahead and when they do you criticize them for wasting money on something that isn't even all that useful yet?
N 12:13PM (2/27/2009)
Wow! GM is effectively leaving Europe... that is pretty severe!
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Nightcrawler 2:15PM (2/27/2009)
What about Vauxhall? Doesn't GM market cars under that name in Europe as well? Or is Vauxhall just a part of Opel?
Swede 4:13PM (2/27/2009)
A Vauxhall is simply an Opel sold in the UK.
tekd 12:20PM (2/27/2009)
4.2 billion per day????
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Level 12:22PM (2/27/2009)
They prefer to let go of Opel but keep Buick ????? GM is very smart....
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adrian 2:10PM (2/27/2009)
Opel is one european subsidary GM needs to hold onto the most.
Len_A 2:15PM (2/27/2009)
Buick name goes far in China, so it's hard to get rid of it.
Jimbo 2:23PM (2/27/2009)
So ditch the Buick brand in the U.S. and keep using it in China on rebadged Chevys.
Len_A 3:18PM (2/27/2009)
Actually, they're starting to design Buicks with the Chinese market in mind first, U.S. second. And do a lot of the design work in China.