With Chrysler Captured, Fiat Moving on Opel
May 04, 2009
By Bill Visnic
With Chrysler LLC now in bankruptcy and its assets all but promised to Fiat S.p.A. as part of a months-in-the-making ownership and alliance proposal, Fiat's hyper-acquisitive chief executive Sergio Marchionne already is laying out a plan to take over General Motors Corp.'s foundering European operations.
And yes, Marchionne's already throwing around the "S" words: synergies and savings.
Marchionne told the Financial Times on Sunday that 1 billion Euros in annual savings would be derived by spinning off Fiat's mainstream auto-making operations and combining them with Opel and GM Europe companies - as well as Chrysler.
And yes, Marchionne reportedly also is planning the deed with the help of loan guarantees from the United Kingdom and other European countries hosting Opel and Fiat plants. In Germany, home of many Opel/GM Europe operations, has indicated it will provide billions in government assistance for Opel. And Marchionne openly insisted Fiat would not commit to its alliance with Chrysler unless the U.S. also ponied up billions in loans.
As an aside, it seems Marchionne's plan to form a trans-Atlantic mega-automaker would provide a definitive home for GM's Saab Cars, from which GM is slated to sever ties at the end of the year. Saab earlier this year filed for Sweden's equivalency of bankruptcy protection and has said it was entertaining takeover offers from several unnamed entities.
Fiat's premium-car units, Maserati and Ferrari, seemingly would not be part of Marchionne's proposed super-group. The Financial Times story did not mention where in the new cosmos Fiat's Alfa Romeo performance-car unit is intended to fit, but Alfa apparently will be a part of the new company, leaving Maserati and Ferrari to stay with the parent company.
Marchionne was reported as saying Fiat and Opel could save 1 billion Euros annually by combining B- and C-segment architectures and "absorbing" Fiat's subcompact A-segment platform, which includes the Fiat 500, and Opel's large D-segment models.
If the production volume of the two companies - along with Chrysler - is combined, the new company would account for more than 6 million vehicle sales annually, allowing it to vie with the Volkswagen Group for the position as the world's second-largest automaker behind Toyota Motor Corp.
The Financial Times article suggests the plan - which would mold the operations into a new publicly traded company - will face numerous political and operational hurdles, not the least of which is likely strong opposition in Germany.
Photos
1 - Opel/Vauxhall Insignia, the brand's flagship car in Europe, was named Car of the Year for 2009.
2 - The 500 is Fiat's pan-European smash hit; there's an Alfa Romeo version, too.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:12 AM under Chrysler , Companies , Featured , GM , Personalities | Comments (1) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
I thought Opel was a top brand for GM in Europe. Seeing that they could use all the help they can get, why unload it?
Posted by: sylvia | May 04, 2009 at 5:33 PM