Neither Opel nor Vauxhall is saying anything official to the European media but rumours continue to swirl over a supposed sale of the two vehicle manufacturers to Volkswagen Group or a possible but unnamed China-based buyer.
Most newswires are remaining cautious in their reporting, as just-auto continues to choose to be. We have been here before with a deal to sell Opel-Vauxhall to Magna International that was dashed at the last minute. There still seems little sense in GM tearing out one of its most important global engineering and manufacturing operations to offer it at a cut-price to a rival. And as for making the currently separately-run Chevrolet its main brand in the region, remember that Chevrolet Europe is more or less a mere sales division: it has no plants or engineering capability of its own.
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Most recently, Karl Streike, the chief executive of Adam Opel, has dismissed as speculation suggestions by Auto Bild and Spiegel that GM is attempting to sell the company, possibly to Volkswagen. Should there prove to be some truth in the latest rumours, it should be noted that any theoretical merger of Opel and Vauxhall with Volkswagen Group would face extreme scrutiny from the European Commission’s fierce anti-monopoly authorities.
As Ford’s sale of Jaguar Land Rover to a lucky and/or far-sighted Tata Motors has shown, if you have put in well targetted and expensive work to save a patient who continues to bleed alarmingly, it can sometimes be best to stand firm; to have some self-belief. Of course in the case of JLR, Ford at that time needed both the cash and to show its creditors that it was serious about cutting its then US$20bn+ of debt so that they in turn would agree to keep rolling it.
As JLR’s recent billion-pound profit proves, well-planned recoveries do indeed occasionally happen and there seems no reason whatsoever to think that Opel-Vauxhall cannot be turned around by its present management, if that is what GM intends to keep empowering that management to do.
Author: Glenn Brooks
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