The possible sale of Opel to Peugeot is met with skepticism by the German government and trade unions. Peugeot boss Tavares wants to advertise personally for the project. Mary Barra, boss of the former owner General Motors, has already traveled to Germany.
PSA boss Carlos Tavares
Wednesday, 15.02.2017
11:05 clock
The Peugeot parent PSA 
is trying to dispel doubts about its takeover plans for Opel. PSA boss Carlos Tavares is ready for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and the unions, said a company spokesman. It goes to the PSA boss for an opening and an alliance. First, the “Bild” newspaper had reported on the push.
Federal Government and IG Metall had the sales talks between the Peugeot dam PSA and the Opel owner General Motors (GM) shown in surprise. The new Federal Minister of Economics Brigitte Zypries (SPD) described it as “unacceptable” that the two companies in advance had not informed the works council, IG Metall and the state and federal government of their plans.
GM boss Mary Barra already advertises in Germany for the planned deal. Barra is currently talking to the Opel team at the headquarters in Rüsselsheim, said a spokesman for the company on Wednesday. There she met with the Opel Supervisory Board Chairman Dan Ammann.
The corporations are exploring various options for expansion and cooperation. However, it was still uncertain whether an agreement would be reached. The two automakers have been working together on various projects in Europe since 2012 and have since been linked on the capital side as well. If taken over, PSA would become the second largest car producer in Europe behind Volkswagen rising up.
According to industry expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, Opel has thousands of jobs at stake. Especially at the headquarters Rüsselsheim central units could be downsized or completely dismantled, because their duties could be taken over in the group, stressed Dudenhöffer on Wednesday. This would affect, for example, purchasing, sales, marketing and parts of the development center. At least one third of the approximately 15,000 jobs in Rüsselsheim would be at a takeover at a disposition.
Deteriorated prospects for German plants
The Opel production would, according to Dudenhöffer expected to be incorporated into the likewise underutilized PSA car manufacturing. This can be read from the previous multi-brand strategy of the PSA with Peugeot, Citroen and DS. “There are no brand-name plants, but only group plants, in which all branded products are manufactured,” said the director of the CAR Institute of the University of Duisburg-Essen. The existing capacity was rather too large, so that the situation for the Opel works in Eisenach and Kaiserslautern had worsened.
Opel has around 38,200 employees in Europe, more than half of them in Germany. The traditional company was founded in 1862 in Rüsselsheim and taken over in 1929 by the US company General Motors. The Adam Opel AG has not made a profit in Detroit since 1999 as a GM European subsidiary and failed to return to profitability in 2016. Instead, the operating loss for 2016 was approximately $ 257 million. After all, that was a significant improvement after $ 813 million loss the year before.