The French and Germans are dancing again to an American beat, with General Motors in confirmed discussions to sell its Opel and Vauxhall operations to PSA Group (the parent of Peugeot and Citroën). The two corporations previously bopped to a similar beat in 2012, when merging Opel with PSA was floated as a possibility and the companies planned to co-develop four vehicle platforms in the wake of heavy losses suffered by PSA (nearly $5 billion in 2012). That same year, GM?s European arm lost a comparatively paltry $1.5 billion, although that loss came on the back of 12?yes, 12?consecutive years of losses.
At the time, the discussions looked like they were taking place between two exhausted men in a lifeboat, each hoping the other one was still strong enough to row. It?s a little different now, with a chunk of PSA now owned by China?s Dongfeng and the two companies sharing some development and engineering projects. But the previous arrangement had somewhat unraveled by the end of 2013, and much about the possible new deal remains odd. For starters, nobody bothered to tell Opel?s people in Rüsselsheim or the manufacturing works council or the labor union. Unions sit on the boards of European carmakers and have major controlling hands in the way things are done. As it happened, PSA simply punching out a statement in Paris and GM following with its own is not the polite way of doing business in Germany.
And neither PSA nor GM Europe look as if they?re ready to undergo...