Britain’s Industry Minister Lord Mandelson has said that Britain ‘will not accept’ Magna’s plan for the takeover of Vauxhall/Opel unless ‘shortcomings’ identified in a report by PwC are addressed.
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Speaking to the Financial Times on a visit to Seoul, Lord Mandelson said the UK government could not ‘sign off’ on the current form of the deal. He said external consultants hired [PwC] to provide a due diligence report had identified ‘shortcomings’ in Magna’s plan.
“Those need to be addressed. If there are not to be negative consequences for Vauxhall, the plan needs to be redressed in certain ways,” said Lord Mandelson.
He also told the newspaper that there should be an ‘impact plan’ agreed before talks begin on how much Britain will contribute to the EUR4.5bn of loan guarantees needed to restructure Opel/Vauxhall.
The PwC report – yet to be made public – is said to see ‘a considerable risk for error’ in the sales projections for Opel/Vauxhall and concluded that Magna’s plans to revitalise Opel are ‘not very robust’ with ‘not enough room for deviations on the downside’.
In other developments, Belgian regional premier Kris Peeters has sent a letter to European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes saying that closing the Opel plant in Belgium could not be justified on economic grounds.
“I want to ask the Commission carefully to analyse and compare the available data of the various factories in the Opel group and to see if non-commercial protectionist conditions are bound to the business plan,” Peeters said in a statement.
See also:
GERMANY: PwC says Opel plan carries significant risks
