PSA And Opel To Be Married, One Way Or The Other

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Yesterday, La Tribune in Paris had it on good authority that moribund Opel and the carmaking arm of PSA Peugeot Citroen would be merged into a joint venture.Reuters started digging a bit deeper and can say with conviction that “General Motors and PSA Peugeot Citroen are exploring ways to combine European operations in a second phase of the carmaking alliance they forged to save costs earlier this year.” They just don’t know yet how.

Reuters heard from three sources that the original alliance deal in which GM became PSA’s second largest shareholder after the Peugeot family was meant as phase one of a bigger deal: Combine Opel and PSA, one way or the other.

There are several ways to do that. According to Reuters’ sources, the options are “selling Opel to Peugeot, buying Peugeot’s automotive business or putting them all together in a new entity.”

GM paid 320 million euros for a 7 percent stake in Peugeot. Whatever the deal will be, it will cost more money. Both companies come with huge obligations, and closing factories is very expensive in Europe. The 7 percent share already lost a lot of its value.

Neither automaker wanted to comment on the rumors, but nobody denied them outright. “We haven’t commented on previous reports and we’re not going to on this one,” Peugeot spokesman Jonathan Goodman said. GM spokesman Selim Bingol said in an emailed sibyllinic statement: “We don’t comment on speculation. We are focused on earning the benefits from our alliance with PSA that we have identified.”


Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

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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  • BigMeats BigMeats on Oct 14, 2012

    So.... did Buickman get tased? Is there a video?

  • 28-Cars-Later 28-Cars-Later on Oct 14, 2012

    Zionism to my understanding was always a political idea mutually exclusive of religion. Perhaps this is inaccurate I'm not sure, and if it is, it is an inaccuracy shared by two different people who have never met and more than likely grew up in completely different places.

  • El scotto El scotto on Oct 14, 2012

    Zionism (Hebrew: ציונות‎, Tsiyonut) is a form of nationalism of Jews and Jewish culture that supports a Jewish nation state in territory defined as the Land of Israel.[1] Zionism supports Jews upholding their Jewish identity and opposes the assimilation of Jews into other societies and has advocated the return of Jews to Israel as a means for Jews to be liberated from anti-Semitic discrimination, exclusion, and persecution that has occurred in other societies.[1] Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state and address threats to its continued existence and security. In a less common usage, the term may also refer to non-political, cultural Zionism, founded and represented most prominently by Ahad Ha'am; and political support for the State of Israel by non-Jews, as in Christian Zionism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism, 1st paragraph.

  • Panzerfaust Panzerfaust on Oct 14, 2012

    This keeps sounding more and more like a marriage I saw many years ago... Studebaker-Packard.

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