General Motors sells Opel/Vauxhall to PSA Group
General Motors has retreated from Europe, selling off Opel/Vauxhall as well as its financial services arm to PSA Group.
WITH THE flourish of a pen, PSA Group has become the second-largest automotive company in Europe, after it agreed to buy Opel/Vauxhall from General Motors. PSA Group said in a statement that buying Opel/Vauxhall helped it to strengthen its European position and “support its worldwide profitable growth”.
“We are proud to join forces with Opel/Vauxhall and are deeply committed to continuing to develop this great company and accelerating its turnaround,” said Carlos Tavares, chairman of the Managing Board of PSA.
“We respect all that Opel/Vauxhall’s talented people have achieved as well as the company’s fine brands and strong heritage. We intend to manage PSA and Opel/Vauxhall capitalizing on their respective brand identities. Having already created together winning products for the European market, we know that Opel/Vauxhall is the right partner. We see this as a natural extension of our relationship and are eager to take it to the next level.”
“We are confident that the Opel/Vauxhall turnaround will significantly accelerate with our support, while respecting the commitments made by GM to the Opel/Vauxhall employees,” continued Mr Tavares.
According to GM, the sale to PSA Group was a natural progression of their previous alliance. “We are very pleased that together, GM, our valued colleagues at Opel/Vauxhall and PSA have created a new opportunity to enhance the long-term performance of our respective companies by building on the success of our prior alliance”, said Mary T. Barra, GM chairman and chief executive officer.
“For GM, this represents another major step in the ongoing work that is driving our improved performance and accelerating our momentum. We are reshaping our company and delivering consistent, record results for our owners through disciplined capital allocation to our higher-return investments in our core automotive business and in new technologies that are enabling us to lead the future of personal mobility.
“We believe this new chapter puts Opel and Vauxhall in an even stronger position for the long term and we look forward to our participation in the future success and strong value-creation potential of PSA through our economic interest and continued collaboration on current and exciting new projects,” Ms Barra concluded.
Locally, Holden hasn’t released a statement about the sale of Opel/Vauxhall to PSA Group although we assume it’s hoping it’ll be business as usual given the amount of new product for the Australian market coming out Europe, not the least of it the all-new Commodore. Stay tuned.
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3 Comments
Hmmm, I don’t think GM will want to be paying licensing fees to PSA for the new Commodore and Astra, so maybe these cars will be around for 2 years to be replaced by GM Korea or even GM China sourced cars. A product body blow to Holden which on top of the impact of losing the great current gen Commodore is really going to hurt Holden’s sales volume. If I had a Holden franchise I’d be worried.
I agree…though given the number of other GM models sharing platforms with the Insignia (E2XX) and Astra (D2XX), my guess is that GM will retain platform rights to build these vehicles…..
This will likely see Holden lose the rights to the Astra nameplate, so come 2022 or so the Cruze will probably be back…..the Commodore name may well survive long term, though it could become a rebadged Malibu or Impala next time around….
Based on part Malibu and Impala models I’m not feeling too confident about the future of Commodore. In any case, medium/large sedans and wagons are a declining segment.