Fiat reportedly has denied it is in talks about striking a major new alliance with other car makers after a newspaper said its strained partnership with General Motors was about to crumble.
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“Fiat and General Motors have an industrial and financial alliance, and there are no similar talks going on with other automakers,” Fiat said in a statement cited by Reuters on Friday.
The report said the newspaper la Repubblica had said earlier that Fiat wanted to pursue new joint ventures, particularly with PSA Peugeot Citroen, which already makes vans with Fiat.
Reuters noted that GM owns 10% of Fiat Auto and they have joint ventures in powertrains and purchasing, but their relationship has been tense due to differences over a “put” option that Fiat can use to force GM to buy the rest of Fiat Auto from January 2005. GM reportedly also denied that the US carmaker had plans to walk away from Fiat. “There is nothing new,” a spokesman told Reuters. “Nothing has changed.”
A Peugeot spokesman told the news agency the French group had no plans for any equity alliance with Fiat and said the light commercial vehicles joint venture would continue.
“We have worked in cooperation with Fiat for a long time. The arrangement has worked extremely well and will continue,” the spokesman told Reuters.
However, the news agency noted that top Fiat executives have long said the carmaker could strike new industrial joint ventures to cut more costs as it battles to pull back into profit after slumping to a record loss in 2002, while chief executive Sergio Marchionne has suggested that such a plan was being held back by Fiat’s ties to GM.
