UPDATE: GM Europe President:Investor With Government Backing Best Option
13 März 2009 - 5:31PM
Dow Jones News
The president of General Motors Corp.'s (GM) European division
Friday said finding an investor for it's core Opel/Vauxhall brands
that has the majority of its investment backed by the state is "the
most promising and innovative path to take".
GM Europe is nearly out of cash, and parent GM has said it is
willing to sell a majority stake in Opel/Vauxhall as part of an
effort to win EUR3.3 billion in aid from Germany and other European
governments.
Finding a state-backed investor "would mean the taxpayer has no
immediate contribution to the restructuring - the government would
only provide guarantees for the majority of the investment made by
a third party," Carl-Peter Forster said in his blog on the
company's website.
Forster said this option "would keep government from having to
take an equity stake in the company, a political precedent that
many have been cautious about setting".
Forster said the proposed rescue plan received "encouraging
initial signs that interest in this type of approach is good and
that our prospects of success are solid," adding that the plan is
based on a "very conservative" market outlook.
Forster added that GM Europe was profitable until mid-2008. He
said a number of actions have been taken "to preserve our cash to
stretch us out through the second quarter".
Forster said the sharp market downturn hit GM at a time when it
was facing low cash reserves due to the extensive restructuring
measures in North America. "When a $40 billion operation loses a
third of its sales essentially overnight, the results are not
pretty," he added.
GM executives, including Forster and Chief Operating Officer
Fritz Henderson, are set to meet later Friday with economic and
industry ministers from European Union countries in Brussels to
discuss possible solutions to stave off insolvency of the company's
European operations.
Industry and Enterprise Commissioner Guenter Verheugen will host
the meeting.
Company Web site: www.gm.com
-By Christoph Rauwald, Dow Jones Newswires; +49 69 29 725 512;
christoph.rauwald@dowjones.com
(Alessandro Torello contributed to this article).