General Motors may be forced in to bankruptcy within the next few weeks, but it looks as though the automaker’s German Opel division will carry on with business as usually, even if its parent files for Chapter 11 protection.
According to a GM spokesman, Opel has a separate pool of cash set aside to keep the German automaker up and running, even if GM gets bogged down with a bankruptcy filing. “GM Europe has its own pool of liquidity,” the unnamed spokesman told Automotive News.
Additionally, Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung is reporting that GM and Opel have reached an agreement that would see parent GM returning patents to Opel, with the German division dropping claims against GM in exchange. However, neither GM nor Opel has commented on the report.
If true, it could be the first step in GM separating itself from the German Opel division. But the two companies are heavily intertwined, so a full separation not expected any time in the immediate future.
