Ford chairman William Clay Ford Jr may have no problem with Magna’s bid-in-progress to buy majority control of Opel but his counterpart at Volkswagen has taken a very different view.
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“We, as a company, do not like it when our supplier becomes our rival,” Financial Times Deutschland quoted VW chairman Ferdinand Piech as saying.
He hinted that VW may want to suspend its business partnership with Magna, and turn to another supplier. “We will easily find others,” Piech added.
VW’s CEO Martin Winterkorn had previously warned Magna there would be a conflict of interests, if the car parts maker swallowed Opel.
Magna has already promised to put ‘Chinese walls’ in place to separate the acquired car business from its component supply operations.
It is also a contract assembler through its Austrian Magna Steyr unit.
