Commentaries

Lower Opel costs to help government aid

General Motors’ decision to scrap the sale of Opel rests on the carmaker’s calculation that the hole in its European unit’s finances is not as deep as previously feared.

Governments should welcome the lower demands on taxpayers with open arms. But there is still some horse trading to be done to get everyone on board. 

GM’s chief executive Fritz Henderson is due to present his plans for Opel next week. He has good reason to be bullish.

GM’s previous forecast that Opel needs $3.3 billion to keep going until 2011 appears to have been sharply revised. Some in the industry think the amount required could be nearer 60 percent of that figure — some $2 billion.

Like other carmakers, European scrappage schemes and improved economic conditions have allowed Opel to significantly reduce its inventory. Cars that were sitting on the tarmac have been sold, putting much-needed cash back into the carmakers’ coffers.

Moreover, GM itself is doing better than originally expected in the United States since emerging from bankruptcy in July. This has given it the confidence not only to scrap the sale of Opel to a consortium led by Magna, the Canadian auto parts maker, but also to repay the remaining 900 million euros on a  bridge loan from the German government.

Earlier concerns about GM using U.S. taxpayer funds to prop up its units overseas seem to have eased. Henderson is now confident he can dip into GM’s U.S. pocket to shore up Opel.

Germany will have to change Opel deal after election

It looks increasingly clear that Germany will have to change its deal to aid carmaker Opel once Sunday’s general election is out of the way.

The European Commission has signaled to Berlin that promising 4.5 billion euros in loan guarantees to only one of the two bidders for General Motors’ European arm to preserve all four German production sites and most Opel jobs in Germany may breach EU rules on state aid to industry. EU regulators want to know why Chancellor Angela Merkel and four German states offered the money to back car parts maker Magna’s bid but not for financial investor RHJ International’s, and on what conditions. 

With Britain, Spain and Belgium’s Flanders region — all hosts to Opel production sites – crying foul, the EU executive is under strong political pressure to intervene. British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has questioned the viability of Magna’s business plan in a letter to the Commission.  Brussels reaffirmed in a statement on Wednesday that Germany could not attach political conditions to the company’s restructuring plan or tie its hands. 

The European Commission will not accept that State aid granted under the Temporary Framework is conditional upon the implementation of a specific business plan, previously discussed and/or negotiated with Member States, which defines the geographic distribution of restructuring measures, without leaving to the beneficiary undertakings the possibility to revise their plans if necessary.

State funding under the Temporary Framework is meant to tackle the financing problems due to the credit crunch, and cannot be used to impose political constraints concerning the location of production activities within the internal market. The beneficiary undertakings must therefore retain full freedom to develop their economic activities in the internal market.

Even the Commission’s German vice-president, Guenter Verheugen, long regarded as the German car industry’s best friend, has told his countrymen that one EU country cannot be allowed to buy a favourable solution for its workers at the expense of another. He has offered the Commission’s help to bring all the Opel host countries together and work out a joint state aid plan for Opel to be monitored by Brussels.

In theory, that means Berlin ought to sign Magna and its Russian partner Sberbank a blank cheque which might lead to a plant in Antwerp or Luton or Zaragoza being kept open instead of an assembly line in Bochum, if the Belgian, British or Spanish site is more efficient. That would be hard for German taxpayers to swallow.

Should Volkswagen demand a Magna Carta?

Magna International seems to be taking seriously threats from Volkswagen to pull its business following the Canadian car parts maker’s Opel victory.

Magna’s co-CEO Donald Walker is saying that after talking to them, most of his other customers are happy that the car parts group – which along with Russian backer Sberbank is buying a 55 percent shareholding in GM’s Opel — is able to protect their technologies.

Apparently VW is still unconvinced, so Magna will “finalising the internal procedures” and will have more talks with the German carmaker.

Walker is also stressing that Magna is not looking to compete with its clients but is simply aiming to get a good return on its investment in Opel, reiterating that Magna will remain a parts company.

There seems little doubt that Magna can manage potential conflicts, after all it already builds cars for BMW, Chrysler and Mercedes as well as making parts for Toyota, Ford and VW.

But to say Magna won’t be competing with other carmakers once it starts building Opel cars is stretching the point. Why else would you buy Opel if it wasn’t to take market share from VW and others?

German Opel aid tests EU rules

The credibility of the European Union’s single market and state aid rules is at stake over Germany’s selective offer of taxpayers’ money to preserve Opel factories and jobs on its soil.

On the face of things, it looks like an open-and-shut breach of state aid rules. General Motors agreed last week to sell 55 percent of its European arm to a consortium of Magna and Russia’s Sberbank under massive pressure from Berlin.

German leaders have said publicly that they promised 4.5 billion euros in loan guarantees for the Magna-led bid — but not for rival bidder RHJ International — because it would preserve all four production sites and as many jobs as possible in Germany. The European Commission says:

state aid cannot be subject to additional non-commercial conditions concerning the location of investments and/or the geographic distribution of restructuring measures.

QED? Well, not quite.

The German authorities are unlikely to have been naive enough to put any such linkage in writing. And without such formal evidence, the EU competition regulator may find it hard to deny approval for the rescue. After all, didn’t French President Nicolas Sarkozy get away with a 6-billion-euro rescue loan to French car makers Renault and Peugeot in March on the unwritten (but loudly proclaimed) understanding that they preserve production sites in France?

European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes says she will scrutinise closely whether Germany set “de jure or de facto” conditions for helping Opel, whether aid was offered to only one bidder, and why its business plan was considered preferable. Kroes has a second possible line of attack, since Brussels must be convinced that a rescued Opel will be viable in the long run. She should talk to the German government’s own trustee, who voted against the Magna sale, questioning its chance of survival due to its small size and chronic overcapacity in the sector.

Can Magna keep its model juggling act with Opel?

Cries from Volkswagen about pulling its business from Magna if the Canadian car parts maker ended up owning a stake in GM’s former European unit Opel ring somewhat hollow given the success Magna has had in juggling its customers’ different needs so far.

Even so, Magna is trying hard to keep its customers — which also include Toyota, Ford and BMW — happy by vowing to ringfence Opel from the rest of its business now it has won the long battle to buy GM’s former European unit.

Sure, these carmakers will want watertight assurances over the supplier’s tie-up with one of their competitors. But they can’t have it all ways if they want to continue to outsource their parts — and even the construction of whole cars — to keep their costs down.

Given the tortuous journey to agreeing a buyer for Opel, Magna’s customers have had plenty of time to work out what guarantees they will want, although it is only now that a deal has been done that they will get to hear the full details of the arrangements between GM, Opel, Magna and its co-investor, Russia’s Sberbank. Magna will have to show them it can treat its own car manufacturer like any other client.

Magna’s Steyr unit already produces the BMW X3, the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, the Chrysler 300C and both the Jeep Commander and Grand Cherokee for three different customers. So it is in a fairly strong position in any discussions — after all the major carmakers are heavily reliant on their parts manufacturers and switching supplier is not an easy option by any means.

But it remains to be seen for how long Magna retains a clear separation between its traditional parts business and its new car making operation Opel. It may find the move up the value chain to its liking.

Not the final word in GM’s Magnum Opel

So German Chancellor Angela Merkel has got her way. After months of pressure from the German government, General Motors has finally caved in and agreed to sell a majority stake in Opel to Canadian car parts maker Magna and Russian backer Sberbank.

It isn’t all over yet — GM is still attaching conditions to the sale of a 55 percent stake in “new” Opel — but the timing of the announcement and the apparently good news for Opel’s 25,000 German employees will be music to Merkel’s ears with just over two weeks to go before a Sept 27. general election.

Merkel says she doesn’t think the GM board’s decision is a delaying tactic, which says a lot about the way the talks have been conducted. But while GM and its chief negotiator John Smith have led Berlin and the various bidders a merry dance, the reality is that the once great U.S. car giant doesn’t really have much of a negotiating position: Opel needs 3.3 billion euros in loan guarantees to keep going. Only Germany is willing to come up with that kind of money.

So for now at least, GM has little choice but to keep Berlin and Opel’s unions happy by opting for Magna rather than Belgium-based financial buyer RHJ International’s bid.

But the fact that GM has not revealed any substantive details about the deal with Magna shows that all is not yet settled. The carmaker says several “key issues” will be finalised over the next few weeks.

Among these are bound to be GM’s deep-seated misgivings about the sanctity of its intellectual property rights under the Magna/Sberbank offer and the nitty-gritty of job cuts.

GM says it has the support of Opel’s unions for a restructuring and now expects a definitive agreement to be signed within a few weeks, with a deal closed in months.

Germany wants GM answer on Opel

Germany’s Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is boldly telling the German public that he expects a “fundamental decision” from the board of General Motors on the future of Opel next week.

He goes further, saying in a television interview that with offers from Canadian car parts manufacturer Magna and Belgian-based investor RHJ International on the table, it is tme for GM to “give in”.

Given that GM has ignored or resisted all German pressure to dictate terms on the sale of its European arm so far, there’s no reason to think that it will change its stance.

But there are growing suggestions that the U.S. automaker has indeed made up its mind on which option it wants to recommend and that a meeting of the German government-backed trust set up to work through the sale of Opel will take place on September 10.

GM’s board is due to meet next week to discuss the Opel situation, with Magna and RHJ both apparently still in the race despite Berlin’s clear preference for Russian-backed Magna.

Keeping the spice alive, there have been suggestions that GM may now be backing off selling a stake in Opel altogether, with reports that it is trying to pull together state aid from the British, Polish and Spanish goverments.

So far at least there’s nothing on GM chief negotiator John Smith’s blog to suggest anything has changed since his last posting on August 14 when he told us with customary clarity where things stood.

RHJ plays cool hand in Opel bidding

RHJ International is playing a canny hand in the political poker match that is the sale of GM’s Opel. The Belgian financial investment house is keeping itself in the game by steadily upping the stakes, increasing the pressure on Berlin to take its bid seriously.

While the German government has so far thrown its considerable backing behind a rival offer for Opel spearheaded by Canadian car parts maker Magna, it has yet to force GM into a deal.

This is in no small part thanks to RHJ’s willingness to play a tough hand. After scrutinising Opel’s books, the investment firm on Wednesday increased the cash on offer for a 50.1 percent stake in Opel to 300 million euros and cut the amount it is asking for in state aid to tide Opel over for the next few years.

RHJ’s improved offer makes it considerably harder for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to justify pushing for a decision on the Opel sale ahead of the election on September 27.

Berlin will also find it increasingly hard to justify backing Magna’s bid and the 4.5 billion euros in state guarantees that it requires, given that RHJ now says it needs just 3.2 billion euros in state guarantees and would repay these by 2013, a year earlier than originally thought.

The revised bid also plays into GM’s hands, giving the automaker an excuse to postpone making its recommendation.

GM prefers the RHJ offer because it will retain a larger stake in Opel and will not have to share know-how with Magna and its Russian backers Sberbank and carmaker GAZ. Its resistance to Magna has proved a headache for Merkel and her government in the run up to the election.

Germany should call GM’s bluff

Recently bankrupted companies seeking billions in taxpayer handouts do not generally have the strongest hand at the negotiating table. Yet General Motors seems determined to drive a hard bargain over the bailout of Opel, its European car arm.

After months of tortured negotiations with the German authorities, GM is now threatening to reverse away from the deal. However, it appears to have few alternatives.

Opel reckons it needs 3.3 billion euros in loan guarantees and other support to see it through to the end of 2011. Germany is ready to stump up the cash, but would like to see Opel sold to Magna,  the Canadian car parts maker, and its Russian backers.

GM is worried that Magna’s bid is too complex and would hand its precious intellectual property to the Russians. It favours a rival bid by RHJ International, the Belgian investment group, which requires less state support but would cost more jobs. With an election looming, however, the RHJ deal looks a non-starter in Berlin.

Now GM is suggesting it might keep Opel and raise the cash elsewhere. Quite where it hopes to find that kind of money is unclear. GM is barred from using U.S. government funds to support its international operations.

It has a presence in Britain through its Vauxhall division, but the British government is less prone to being blackmailed with the prospect of plant closures. Just ask Tata, the Indian group which spent months seeking government support to prop up Jaguar Land Rover before giving up.

GM could raise some cash by flogging or mortgaging its Chinese operations, the largest outside the United States. Even though credit markets have eased since the spring, however, the political complexities of such a sale would surely rival anything thrown up by the Magna proposal.

Driving an Opel round in circles

True to form, GM’s negotiator on the sale of Opel has poured cold water on expectations of a slam-dunk deal for Canadian car parts group Magna and its Russian backers.

John Smith (no relation, but I’m impressed by his negotiating) maintains in his blog that GM will compare the latest Magna offer with the proposal it has on the table from Belgium-based financial investor RHJ International.

Yesterday was a pretty busy day in the media, with many outlets  reporting that Magna/Sberbank and General Motors had reached an agreement regarding Opel.  At the risk of repeating myself, that’s just not the case. (emphasis added)

Smith is still waiting for more information from Germany’s automotive task force on the T&C of the financing package they are offering to sweeten a deal to buy Opel.

He’s promising to keep us posted. Shame nobody else involved in the negotiations in blogging on them. Or perhaps a chatroom is the way to go.