The fate of German carmaker Opel hung in the balance yesterday after marathon talks on shielding it from the looming bankruptcy of its US parent General Motors (GM) ended without a deal.
German ministers told reporters after more than 12 hours of negotiations in Berlin that a bidding battle for Opel had narrowed to a two-way race between Italian carmaker Fiat and Canadian auto parts company Magna.
But they blamed GM and the US Treasury for the failure to agree a plan to tide Opel over until a deal with one of those suitors can be sealed.
PHOTO: AFP
“We have made demands on the US Treasury and expect answers by Friday and we will need these answers in order to agree a plan,” German Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said.
“We don’t have the security yet that we need to commit to bridge financing today,” he said.
Choosing a final bidder for Opel and closing a deal could take months — time that neither the carmaker nor the German government have with GM expected to file for bankruptcy in days after a crucial bond exchange proposal failed.
To tide Opel over, Germany has put together a 1.5 billion euro (US$2.1 billion) aid package. However, it has made this aid contingent on the US government and GM agreeing to its plan to temporarily place Opel assets in a trust, a move that would protect its patents and technology from GM creditors.
German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said he was hopeful a deal could be reached today that would save Opel.
But he spoke of “surprises and disappointment” with the US negotiators, saying GM had shocked participants by announcing it needed 300 million euros in additional short-term cash.
Roland Koch, prime minister of the state of Hesse where Opel is based, said: “I think we can say clearly that a big part of the problems tonight came from the combination of new figures from General Motors and a not very helpful negotiating stance from the Americans, from the US Treasury.”
Guttenberg said insolvency remained an option for Opel if US negotiators refused to budge.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel had called the meeting to agree a plan to keep the carmaker running while negotiations with suitors are finalized.
Ahead of the meeting, Fiat and Magna were seen as the leading contenders for Opel. Afterwards, Steinbrueck said that a third bidder, holding company RHJ, was out of the race.
Fiat has presented an ambitious plan to fold Opel and other GM Europe brands — Vauxhall and Saab — into a transatlantic car empire that would also include new US partner Chrysler.
Magna wants to use Opel and other GM brands to make an aggressive push into the Russian market.
A fourth bidder, China’s Beijing Automotive Industry Corp (北京汽車工業), could still be in the running if it comes up with a more detailed offer.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
RSS