{"id":8962,"date":"2017-03-05T17:45:42","date_gmt":"2017-03-05T17:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/gm-set-to-announce-opelvauxhall-sale-on-monday\/"},"modified":"2017-03-05T17:45:42","modified_gmt":"2017-03-05T17:45:42","slug":"gm-set-to-announce-opelvauxhall-sale-on-monday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/gm-set-to-announce-opelvauxhall-sale-on-monday\/","title":{"rendered":"GM set to announce Opel\/Vauxhall sale on Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"PeugeotImage copyright Getty Images <\/figure>\n

General Motors is set to announce a deal to sell Vauxhall and Opel to the French company that owns Peugeot and Citroen on Monday.<\/p>\n

PSA Group has scheduled a press conference with GM for Monday morning in Paris.<\/p>\n

The two companies had wanted to announce a deal before the start of the Geneva motor show on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The sale could threaten the jobs of 4,500 workers at Vauxhall's plants at Ellesmere Port and Luton.<\/p>\n

Buying GM's loss-making European operations will make PSA the continent's second-biggest car maker after Volkswagen and ahead of French rival Renault.<\/p>\n

PSA and GM Europe sold a combined 4.3 million vehicles last year and posted revenues of 71.6bn euros.<\/p>\n

The two companies already share some production and confirmed last month they were in talks.<\/p>\n

Opel had hoped to return to profitability by 2016, but the slide in sterling following the EU referendum last June contributed to its 257m euros annual loss.<\/p>\n

In contrast, Ford Europe managed to make a pre-tax profit last year despite the pound's collapse.<\/p>\n

Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption The Astra is made at Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port plant <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Opel has failed to emulate Ford or PSA in reducing overcapacity at its factories despite closing a plant in the western German city of Bochum, with the loss of 3,000 jobs, in 2014.<\/p>\n

Stefan Bratzel, of Germany's Center of Automotive Management, said: "Opel suffers more from overcapacity than other European carmakers, meaning it has to offer big discounts to keep up a certain level of production and that hits its profitability." <\/p>\n

In a bid to protect its Buick and Chevrolet brands, GM has not allowed Opel to expand outside Europe.<\/p>\n

"All the western carmakers have been making their money in the Chinese market these past few years," said Marc Staudenmayer of the Advancy management consultancy.<\/p>\n

"Opel wasn't allowed to do that, which explains its underperformance since 2005. Opel was reined in too much by GM," he added.<\/p>\n

GM's European operations have lost money for 16 consecutive years and were almost sold in 2009.<\/p>\n

For PSA, the deal caps a stellar two-year recovery under chief executive Carlos Tavares, who is expected to slash costs at Opel in a bid to generate savings of up to 2bn euros a year.<\/p>\n

Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption PSA chief executive Carlos Tavares is expected to slash costs at Opel <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jim Holder, of What Car? magazine, told the BBC: "PSA has capacity to build more cars in its own plants - it doesn't need these plants in Britain. <\/p>\n

"And of course there are obstacles in the way, with the currency fluctuations, the problems posed by Brexit with freedom of movement, freedom of movement for parts as well."<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, said last month that Vauxhall workers had no reason to fear for their jobs.<\/p>\n

"We have a very strong domestic market and Vauxhall has a large share of that - something PSA recognises," he told MPs.<\/p>\n

"From my initial conversations I think it is understood that Vauxhall's plants are very efficient."<\/p>\n

Mr Tavares recently told analysts the acquisition offered an "opportunity to create a European car champion" and quickly exceed five million sales annually. <\/p>\n

PSA also plans to revamp Opel's model range. "There are market segments where Opel isn't very strong, like SUVs," Mr Staudenmayer said.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Getty Images General Motors is set to announce a deal to sell Vauxhall and Opel to the French company that owns Peugeot and Citroen on Monday. PSA Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}