Now there is clarity for the Opel employees: PSA Peugeot Citroën and General Motors have agreed on the sale of Opel. Now the car maker is facing a tough rehabilitation route.
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PSA boss Carlos Tavares
Monday, 06.03.2017
13:44 clock
The sale is sealed: The French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroëntakes over Opel, As PSA announced on Monday morning in a statement, the company pays 1.3 billion euros for it; for another 900 million, GM Financial’s European operations go to the French company. In addition to Opel also Vauxhall belongs to the previous European business of GM.
PSA Peugeot Citroën 
with its previous brands Peugeot, Citroën and DS wants to become a “European car champion” and number two behind Volkswagen rising up.
The major bank BNP Paribas is involved in the purchase of the financial sector , which establishes a joint venture with PSA.
“We are confident that the turnaround of Opel / Vauxhall will be significantly accelerated with our support,” said PSA boss Carlos Tavares. “At the same time, we respect the commitments GM has made to Opel / Vauxhall employees.” For Monday morning, a press conference in Paris was announced.
The business is still subject to conditions and authority approvals and should be completed by the end of this year. “Opel / Vauxhall will continue to benefit from GM’s copyright licenses until the vehicles are gradually built on PSA platforms in the coming years,” the companies said. GM retains a large part of the pension obligations in its balance sheet. Commitments worth EUR 3 billion will be transferred to PSA, but this will be fully covered by GM financed. Part of the purchase price is also paid with warrants on PSA actions worth 0.65 billion euros.
compass opinion
In an Opel takeover by PSA in the medium term job losses are feared. The approximately 19,000 German Opel employees are still protected until the end of 2018 from operational layoffs. In addition, the still-mother General Motors Collective agreement on investments and production in the three German Opel plants Rüsselsheim, Kaiserslautern and Eisenach. Opel currently has a good 38,000 employees in seven European countries.
PSA boss Carlos Tavares had agreed to receive Opel as a German company, But he had also announced that Opel must be in the event of a takeover by PSA renovate largely on their own,
Opel has been in the red for years, last year, the GM-Europe division operationally 257 million dollars (241 million euros) in the lousy. PSA on the other hand made a whopping profit of 1.7 billion euros. Even in the past few years, PSA had returned to the black with a harsh reorganization course and job losses.