PSA Group CEO Carlos Tavares says Opel, if bought by PSA, will remain a German company. Tavares also is open to maintaining Opel’s current management structure if the deal goes ahead, reports say, citing people familiar with Tavares’ thinking.
PSA and GM last week went trying to win German support for a sale of Opel to PSA amid concerns that a combination would lead to job losses and a massive overhaul of the brand.
Tavares will meet Opel’s German stakeholders, a PSA spokesman said. He will pledge to “maintain Opel as a German company in full compliance with German labor law” when he meets government and union officials, a source told Reuters. He will present the deal as “an alliance between a French carmaker and a German carmaker.”
GM are making the case that selling Opel to PSA would position the brand to grow and provide better long-term job security than with continued GM ownership, Bloomberg reported. Both GM and PSA are saying in private discussions that Opel would face sharper cuts under continued GM ownership than under PSA’s, sources said.
GM CEO Mary Barra and President Dan Ammann plan to meet with German government officials soon. Barra visited Opel headquarters in Ruesselsheim near Frankfurt on Wednesday. She did not meet workers but sent a memo to staff saying the deal would be good for GM’s future growth plans, shareholder value and for the longevity of Opel’s German operations.
The tie-up would put Opel and PSA “in a position to improve their standing in the fast-changing European market,” Barra wrote in a memo, which was signed by Barra and Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann.
GM and PSA hope to finalise a deal before the Geneva auto show in just over two weeks, the Financial Times reported.
