GM Europe chief executive Carl-Peter Forster has said in a corporate blog posting that he is ‘physically and emotionally exhausted’ after the intense negotiations to secure agreements with the German government and Magna.
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He also says that the negotiations went through a couple of ‘near-death experiences’ before they rebounded.
In his blog Forster stresses that the trustee arrangement agreed will not impinge on Opel/Vauxhall GME operations on a day-to-day basis.
“Further to this, the current management structure of GME, reporting relationships and the alignments with GM’s global product group also remain unimpacted by the trust agreement as well,” he says.
Forster also says the he expects a definitive [sale] agreement will be reached by July and that “we should be able to close the deal by September”.
He adds that “much work remains and much could happen along the way”.
Forster also throws some light on the alleged ‘surprise’ of the additional EUR350m in financing that was presented on the night of May 27 and reportedly angered the German government.
“Let me state clearly that this was a misunderstanding of expectations that arose late in the process and was in no way a mistake or manipulation by our finance team,” he says.
