French Government: PSA Officially In A Tough Spot

It’s official. France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen is “in a difficult situation,” says a government-commissioned report into PSA’s financial situation. The report comes to the conclusion, says Reuters, that the company cannot be saved by cost cutting alone, and that ”job cuts must not hurt its research and development capabilities.” While the report does not make recommendations on how else the company is to be saved, it pretty much smells like bailout à la française.

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PSA Kicked Off CAC 40 Index

Bad day for PSA and by association partner GM: PSA Peugeot Citroen will be dropped from France’s CAC 40 blue chip stock index, market operator NYSE Euronext told Reuters. To add insult to injury, the former blue chip will be replaced by a Belgian company, chemicals group Solvay.

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Deep Throat: GM-PSA Deal Doomed, Girsky Tired, Wants Home. Experts: Sell Opel Already!

Rubbing shoulders with industry types displaced to a Chinese city called Chengdu has its good parts. You hear stories you normally don’t see in a press release. An executive who works for the western partner of a large Chinese joint venture told me today that my story about Chinese interests killing the Opel deal between GM and PSA wasn’t true. At least not completely. As so often, in the denial was a much more interesting story. After another drink for encouragement, said executive told me very much off the record that GM is tired of the PSA deal and wants out. If that means leaving Opel for dead, so be it.

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Chinese Interests Kill Opel-Peugeot Deal, Endanger Opel's Already Shaky Future

GM is backing out of plans to share the Opel Insignia platform with its partner PSA, says Der Spiegel. It was planned that PSA will build a mid-sized Peugeot and Citroen with next gen Insignia underpinnings. The cars would have been made at Opel’s Rüsselsheim factory. Together with the Opel model, the cars would have filled the available capacity. Scratch that plan. It wasn’t killed because it was a bad idea. It was killed because Buick and especially GM China complained, says the magazine.

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EU Money For Fired PSA Workers

Bailing out a European carmaker in need is sure to attract the attention and ire of a few EU Commissars. Once people are in the street, money can legally flow.

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GM Europe Springs A Huge Leak: Explosive Production Plans To Trigger Wrath Of The French

While in Detroit the leaking remains limited to gossip and innuendo, Opel in Germany sprung a Deepwater Horizon–sized leak that could pollute the political landscape for years. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says it is in possession of something that is regarded as part of the crown jewels of a car company: The long-term production plan through the next decade. It’s bad enough that a paper publishes closely guarded secrets – their publication could blow-up the plan.

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PSA Suspends EV Order, Has Enough

In 2010, when everybody was going ecstatic about EVs, PSA Peugeot Citroen said to Mitsubishi: “send us some of your i-Mievs, with our badges. Say, 100,000 for starters.”

PSA sold them (as much as they could) as the Peugeot iOn and Citroen C-Zero, the first car that sounds like sugar-free soda-pop. Now, PSA picked up the phone, called Japan, and said: “Hold the i-Mievs! We have enough!”

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France Wants EU To Probe Increased South Korean Auto Imports

France is asking the EU to look into an uptick in South Korean car imports, which could possibly result in tarrifs being slapped on the vehicles, despite an EU-South Korean free trade agreement.

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GM Makes Bad Bet With PSA, May Have To Write Down Investment

When GM bought seven percent of the moribund PSA Peugeot Citroen five months ago, the happy couple praised monstrous synergies and annual cost savings of $2 billion a year coming from the – ahem – tie-up. Hope springs eternal, but currently, the value of this dubious investment is deflating faster than a popped balloon. Even GM is realizing it and tells the Treasury that it may have to write down that investment if things don’t get better soon.

The ever so vigilant Reuters actually went to the trouble of reading the complete 10-Q GM filed with the SEC in connection with GM’s recent quarterly report. In that filing, GM says:

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PSA Peugeot Citroen Deep In The Reds

Europe’s second-largest car maker and GM alliance partner PSA Peugeot Citroen ended the first half of the year with its auto division 662 million euro ($800 million) in the reds, Reuters says.

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TTAC Correspondents Debate: Why Does Toyota Buy Vans From PSA, Hiace Be Damned?

Yesterday, we talked about the odd occurrence of Toyota if not saving the hide of GM’s new partner PSA Peugeot Citroen, then at least keeping one of PSA’s plants from being closed. This by having vans made by PSA for the European market, instead of shipping them from Japan.

When we wrote that, TTAC correspondent th009 rightfully questioned why in the world does Toyota order a van from PSA if they have a Hiace. Correspondent felix offered the explanation that due to its “cab-over configuration, the Hiace won’t meet European frontal impact crash standards.” This sounded like a logical explanation, until from Finland, correspondent Perc offered a resounding “mitää???”, explaining that the Hiace has been a big success in Suomi. Finland has the same safety standards as all on Europe.

So, what is it then?

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Toyota And PSA In Tie-Up, Sevelnord Saved - For Now

While France’s new leftist government mulls a new “drive French” plan and makes threatening gestures in the direction of French car makers that dare to do something about overcapacity, in an odd change of events it is a Japanese company that will prevent a much anticipated plant closure at PSA Peugeot Citroen.

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PSA Chairman Calls Industry Minister "Evil," Warns Against Takeover

PSA Peugeot Citroen’s Chairman Thierry Peugeot lashed out against what he calls “evil attacks” by the new leftist French government and its industry minister Arnaud Montebourg. He also raised a specter that makes any patriotic politician sit up and listen: Hostile takeovers.

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The Peugeots Strike Back Against Their Government

The Peugeot family is on war footing with the French government. It “hit back at suggestions by a government official that its members have favored their own financial interests over the development of the family-controlled auto maker,” says the Wall Street Journal. Basically, the family followed the line of argument suggested by TTAC.

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Leftist Minister To Interrogate Peugeot Family Over Dividends. What Dividends?

The Peugeot family will receive an invitation from French industry minister Arnaud Montebourg, but not for tea and cookies.

The minister “plans to summon members of the Peugeot family to explain why the car maker had continued to pay dividends even as it was facing mounting difficulties,” Reuters says.

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