German politicians would rather Magna take over Opel while Fiat would keep all four German Opel sites in production, though not necessarily at current levels, media reports said on Monday.
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“Magna is a more serious option than Fiat,” the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) reported, quoting sources close to vice chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Social Democrat candidate for chancellor in elections next September.
The FTD said he had already held talks with Magna’s director of European operations, Siegfried Wolf, and with former Austrian chancellor Franz Vranitsky, who also now works for the Canadian partsmaker. Magna has a contract vehicle assembly unit in Graz, Austria – its customers include BMW, Daimler and Chrysler.
Over the weekend, Roland Koch, the regional premier of the western state Hesse, home to Opel’s HQ near Frankfurt, voiced support for Magna as well, Reuters reported.
Der Spiegel magazine said German economy minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was scheduled to meet this week with Magna representatives.
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By GlobalDataA purchase of Opel by Fiat has not been completely ruled out, however, though Fiat said on Friday it had not made an offer.
According to Reuters, Der Spiegel quoted sources close to Fiat as saying it was committed to maintaining Opel’s four German factories, though it did not pledge to keep them running at their full pace.
A Fiat-Opel initiative came from General Motors, the magazine added, but has been received with great scepticism in Germany.
GM CEO Fritz Henderson said in Detroit today that he expected talks over Opel with interested parties to continue into May.
Sources earlier told Automotive News Europe that Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne planned to merge Fiat Auto with Opel, Vauxhall and GM’s Latin American operations which, combined with Chrysler, would create a 6.65m unit giant ranked number two by units sold on last year’s numbers, giving Marchionne the economies of scale he desires.
“You need at least 5.5m to 6m cars (a year) based on shared vehicle architectures to have a chance of making money. Fiat is not even halfway there. So we need to aggregate,” Marchionne told ANE last November.
