Following closely on the heels of its Hummer sale to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company, General Motors will reportedly announce the sale of its German Opel brand to Magna and its Russian partner on Thursday.
According to Automotive News, GM will announce the sale of Opel to Canada’s Magna and Russia’s Sberbank sometime on Thursday. The Magna-led duo will acquire a 55 percent stake in Opel, with GM retaining a 35 percent share. The remaining 10 percent will be given to Opel employees in return for 1.2 billion in worker concessions.
The Opel deal has been a long time in the making as it has faced several obstacles. Governments in the UK and Spain largely opposed the Opel deal as Magna will likely close factories in those countries. The German government also pledged to withhold aid unless jobs were secured there.
In the end, Opel will likely cut about a fifth of its workforce under its new ownership, with European employment set to drop to around 40,000 employees. However, Magna and Sberbank – Russia’s largest commercial bank – will spend at least 500 million euros on the Opel brand. Most of that funding will be used to expand the Opel brand into the Russian market.
