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.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
SECURITY: The New Zealand and Australian navies also sailed military vessels through the Strait yesterday to assert the right of freedom of navigation The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force on Wednesday made its first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait in response to the intrusion by a Chinese reconnaissance aircraft into Japan’s sovereign airspace last month, Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday. The Japanese news platform reported that the destroyer JS Sazanamisailed down through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, citing sources in the Japanese government with knowledge of the matter. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi declined to comment on the reports at a regular briefing because they concern military operations. Military vessels from New Zealand and Australia also sailed through the Strait on the same day, Wellington’s defense ministry
SOVEREIGNTY EMPHASIZED: President William Lai said that Taiwan ‘absolutely will not sign’ an agreement with Beijing implying that the nation is part of China Taiwan hopes to join like-minded nations under the democratic umbrella and jointly counter authoritarian aggression, President William Lai (賴清德) said in a prerecorded speech during the annual Concordia Summit in New York on Tuesday. Lai addressed the summit via video at Concordia’s invitation, using the opportunity to speak on the issue of Chinese aggression toward Taiwan and Beijing’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758. Lai’s comments came on the heels of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, which opened on Tuesday. China has “distorted” UN Resolution 2758 “in support of its ‘one China’ principle,” he said. Through its misinterpretation