Wikidiarrhea: How The Rooskies Blew The Opel Deal
Good morning! Two years after GM reneged on the Opel sale to Magna and Sperbank, the Times of London has the big scoop. GM cancelled the sale of Opel because the buyers wanted the right to sell its factories to a Russian state-owned car maker, says the Times, citing U.S. diplomatic cables revealed in Wikileaks. Really? You don’t say! We are shocked!
Now if The Times would have read the highly confidential TTAC, it would have known two years ago that Russia’s GAZ was in on the Magna-Sperbank deal from day one. A little further reading would have revealed that GM had no problems with GAZ right after the deal collapsed and wanted to “pick up with Magna and GAZ and continue to try to develop this business –but obviously now as part of a GM-retained Opel, not as part of a Magna-Sberbank consortium,” as then GM Group Vice President John Smith said two years ago. Even more reading would have revealed that the same GAZ has “signed an agreement for the contract assembly of the new Chevrolet Aveo small car at GAZ’s facility in Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia” in February. Which caused us to write:
“Remember Oleg Deripaska? The Russian oligarch that had been under suspicion of money laundering and organized crime activities? The very same Deripaska GM did not want to have close to Opel for fear of losing their precious intellectual property ? Yes, him. GM just handed him the blueprints and the tooling for the Chevy Aveo.”
I don’t know who’s more asleep at the wheel, the Times of London, Wikileaks, or the U.S. Embassy in Berlin that dispatched the cable to Foggy Bottom.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Handing someone the tooling for the Aveo might be considered an act of war against the giftee... maybe GM is still fighting the Reds.
I want to know where that original image came from. It looks like a slightly racy Hardy Boys novel.