German chancellor Angela Merkel told Opel workers she would help the automaker find an investor but stopping short of making concrete promises.
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Speaking to 3,000 staff at the company’s main plant near Frankfurt, Merkel brushed off calls from labour bosses and her Social Democrat coalition partners for the state to take a direct stake in Opel, stressing that the government was not in the business of running companies, Reuters reported.
Opel employs about 25,000 in Germany and has said it needed EUR3.3bn euros (US$4.4 billion) in state aid from European governments to save jobs and keep plants open. About EUR2.6bn is needed from Germany for Opel alone.
Merkel said the government could use loan guarantees to help entice investors, adding that Berlin also would step up efforts to defend German interests in talks with the US government and Opel parent General Motors.
US president Barack Obama’s administration on Monday rejected restructuring plans from GM and Chrysler, saying it would fund GM’s operations for 60 days. Merkel said that time would be used to negotiate a viable solution for Opel.
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By GlobalData“We must now talk at eye level over the next 60 days with our American colleagues in order to achieve a reasonable and mutual solution in the end.”
She said she would set up a team of negotiators led by economy minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg that would include representatives of the German federal and state governments, investment bankers and business experts.
Merkel warned she would not be party to a Holzmann-style bailout, in which predecessor Gerhard Schroeder engineered a last minute deal to save the Frankfurt construction giant, only to watch it promptly collapse less than three years later.
“I would not like it if we were to experience something reminiscent of Holzmann, that was like a flash in the pan but in the end didn’t work out,” she told employees gathered in assembly hall K84 at Opel’s main Ruesselsheim plant.
Ahead of Merkel’s speech there, Opel’s management had cranked up the pressure on Berlin to commit to bailing out Opel.
“Opel deserves (state) support and is well positioned with new products it is preparing,” chief executive Hans Demant said, standing next to his extended-range electric vehicle Ampera, Opel’s equivalent of the Chevrolet Volt, that is due to hit the European market in 2011.
GM Europe’s head Carl-Peter Forster on Tuesday raised hopes that the company had made headway in survival talks when he said Opel would retain full access to GM patents and technology.
Demant told Reuters on the sidelines of the event he expected the company might find an investor in the financial industry. Finding someone from the car industry would be very difficult in the current economic environment, he said.
Hesse state premier Roland Koch dismissed the possibility of a private equity deal that traditionally uses leveraged buyouts: “That model died a half a year ago.”
