Quote Of The Day: The Five Billion Dollar Question Edition
The catalyst for all this was the EU saying you only made the money available to one investor. The board did what they should have done and revisited the issue… It’s been a confusing decision, but I don’t think it was handled badly. The circumstances changed from the time this started. The financial part of the business got better. Conditions have changed.
GM Chairman Ed Whitacre on the decision to keep Opel. Financial? Better? Because EU regulators said so? How anyone can see the Opel situation as a “sign of change” is beyond me. GM never wanted to get rid of Opel, they just didn’t want to pay the $8 bil, er, $3 billion to keep it. Too bad German Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle says it’s actually going to cost a cool $5b to restructure Opel. Which GM will just be cannibalizing with Chevwoos anyway. Is any of this not sounding like Old GM?
More by Edward Niedermeyer
Comments
Join the conversation
Well, our tax dollars are now going to Germany. How do you feel about paying Opels workers their salaries. What a joke........
Didn't the Opel/Magna deal fall apart about 1 minute after the German government announced they were going to investigate the deal because they smelled something politically fishy? I don't believe any financial conditions improved. I think GM is just trying to avoid a scandal.
The first 2 dollar amounts were estimates in Euros. The last one, is in USD. Germany says 3.3 billion Euros. So the 8 billion number from Moody is looking very odd now. This is a good move for GM, keeping Opel (read best engineering team for cars GM has) is what GM needed to do. It will be a very good move in the long run. Also, read the article you have under "sign of change." I am not the only one that thinks Germany helped caused this problem with Opel sell in the first place.
Last week Fritz Henderson didn't quite know when GM would float because he didn't exactly know when GM would break even. This week GM Chairman, Whitacre, says they'll pay back the Govt loans "before time". Maybe these two guys should speak to each other and find out who knows the cash flow better and then button down what they're going to say in public!