Renault Confirms Deal with Penske Couldn't Be Reached to Supply Saturn
October 01, 2009
A Renault executive confirmed negotiations to provide Penske Automotive Group with 
vehicles to sell as Saturns broke down at the last minute.
"We negotiated with them but we were unable to reach agreement at the end," Renault COO Patrick Pelata told Bloomberg News in an interview on the sidelines of a Paris news conference Thursday.
Pelata said Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn didn't recommend approval of an agreement with Penske to the board, which met Wednesday.
Ending the talks "was not a board decision," Pelata added. The Penske group's statement said, without naming Renault, that the board of the manufacturer with which it was negotiating rejected the deal.
As a result of failed negotiations with Renault, Penske broke off talks with General Motors to buy Saturn Wednesday. GM will not proceed in eliminating Saturn.
Mike Tyndall, a London-based European autos specialist with Nomura Securities, told Bloomberg, the deal probably made sense to Renault at first glance but likely drew the objections of Nissan, Renault's 44 percent-owned affiliate. Tyndall suggested the details probably led the companies to believe it did the Renault-Nissan alliance more harm than good."They'd be using potentially cheaper versions of alliance products to compete with Nissan in its most important market," he told Bloomberg.
It should be noted that Ghosn and Nissan-Renault were spurned by GM after the two companies, at the urging of investor Kirk Kerkorian, exploring an affiliation. GM's board rejected the deal. -- Michelle Krebs, Senior Analyst and Editor at Large
Photo by Renault
Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn was not in favor of supplying Penske with cars to sell through Saturn dealers.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:19 AM under Companies , GM | Comments (3) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
GM, your skiming and lies are not helping your emage. Now we all understand that you did not sell Saturn to Pinske, but gave him exclusive rights to sell the cars for 2 years while you are sutting down Saturn. My advice to Magna, quit while you can and aplay for the job of managing Opel when GM just leave it alone.
Posted by: mzohar | October 01, 2009 at 12:44 PM
GM, your skiming and lies are not helping your emage. Now we all understand that you did not sell Saturn to Pinske, but gave him exclusive rights to sell the cars for 2 years while you are sutting down Saturn. My advice to Magna, quit while you can and aplay for the job of managing Opel when GM just leave it alone.
Posted by: mzohar | October 01, 2009 at 12:45 PM
GM will \not\ proceed in eliminating Saturn? This is contrary to what other sites are reporting today.
Posted by: fulcrumb | October 02, 2009 at 10:33 AM