GM repays Germany on $2.2B Opel loan!!...

GM repays Germany on $2.2B Opel loan!!... General Motors announced on Friday that it has repaid Germany on a $2.2 billion loan the company received in June to keep its Opel brand afloat.

[Delphi Drop Out]

Shouldn't this say the US Taxpayers repaid Germany? This is just wrong.

[JJFADS]

GM continues to dangle a carrot in front of the Germans. Either get on board or get out of the way. A GM spokesman responded “We will pay your stinking money back and kick you out all together.”

The Russians still remain upset as they stated again earlier today:

“Ve vill bury you!”

Detroit responded “Go get your own auto company ya lazy bums.”

[The Authority]

GM paid the bridge loan through its escrow account, compliments of U.S. taxpayers. Whatever the case, GM has destroyed the Opel brand in Europe.

[JJFADS]

Sounds like the Toyota apologist is upset about GM’s trump on the Germans and it’s decision to keep Opel.. As the once great Canadian poster used to say…. So sorry so sad…lol.

Are you Russian?

[The Authority]

GM alienates customers in its domestic European marekt. Sound familiar? Proof that GM's strategies are truly global, not just North American.

Why would they want to keep Opel?

[Stop It]

The Authority wrote:

GM alienates customers in its domestic European marekt. Sound familiar? Proof that GM's strategies are truly global, not just North American.
Why would they want to keep Opel?

Both Opel and Vauxhall (GM UK) are on the skids in Europe and UK.
This latest fiasco has merely hastened their demise.

[JJFADS]

Stop It wrote:

<quoted text>
Both Opel and Vauxhall (GM UK) are on the skids in Europe and UK.
This latest fiasco has merely hastened their demise.

You silly Canadian, follow me and become educated. GM has given an ultimatum and it’s brilliant. They have paid back the loan, therefore Germans (and some Canadians) have no choice but to crawl back in their hole and shut up. Now comes the brilliant sucker punch. Germans will have to cough up coin if they want to keep Opel production. Just ask the guy that backed the wrong horse for a fate synopsis. Unfortunately for the hary Germans, if they don’t pony up cash, other countries will. Regardless, GM can elect to fund the operations themselves. Anyway it goes, GM comes out the winner. Please don’t take offense to this post; I am here to educate you.

[Stop It]

The truth about GM's dealings with European stakeholders.
There are a lot of questions still to be answered re this issue, in spite of what anyone says.

Automotive News, November 12, 2009.

General Motors' bouleversement on the sale of its Opel brand has caused the European head of Opel vacate his office, the head of Opel labor to gulp "a bottle of wine" to get over the shock, the German head of state to request "GM to present a reliable plan for Opel quickly," and Germany's economic minister to prod GM to pay back the rest of the €1.5 billion ($2.25B U.S.) bridge loan.

GM's response has been for CEO Fritz Henderson to Germany on an "Opel charm tour," to pay back a portion of the borrowed fund and promise the remaining €600 million by the end of the month, and to declare that it will only need €3.5 billion ($4.5B U.S.) to restructure Opel. GM crows that the amount is "significantly lower than all bids submitted as part of the investor solicitation" and how, in fact, it's less than the €4.5 billion the German government pledged to give Magna in aid (much less Magna's anticipated restructuring costs).

The gap in this scenario: Where did GM get that number? It was rumored that Belgian investment bank RHJ was only looking to hold on to Opel for a turnaround sale to GM, which would seem to indicate they weren't going to spend a ton of money on restructuring, and even its final bid was more than €3.5 billion. Moody's predicts GM will actually need €5.8 billion ($8.5B USD) to turn Opel fully around. Nevertheless, some see this as a good thing. For us, the only conclusion we can come to is the same one we've been held at for six months: a lot of questions still need answering.

[JJFADS]

You’re getting caught up in the drama. Repeat after me, GM owns Opel, they will reduce Germany’s roll in the company if they don’t cooperate. There’s nothing anyone can do about it. There, I just summed it up for you in three sentences.

[The Authority]

Stop It wrote:

<quoted text>
Both Opel and Vauxhall (GM UK) are on the skids in Europe and UK.
This latest fiasco has merely hastened their demise.

GM is abandoning the European market, which is OK by me.

[whatever]

The Authority wrote:

GM paid the bridge loan through its escrow account, compliments of U.S. taxpayers. Whatever the case, GM has destroyed the Opel brand in Europe.

Exactly. Let's state the facts as we've seen them unfold.

1) GM goes crawling to DC and Ottawa for tens of billions of $$.
2) GM decides to sell Opel.
3) GM backs out of the sale.
4) GM says it'll pay Germany back with money borrowed the US and Canadian taxpayers.
5) GM states that it will not pay back the American or Canadian taxpayers in full even though it has a supposed $42 billion cash on hand.
6) GM backs out of the 50-50 partnership at the Nummi plant in California leaving its ex-partner to foot the entire plant closure bill that includes past and present employee pension plans and environmental clean up.

Even with all of that it still lost $1.2 billion last quarter. Seems like it's business as usual at GM.

[Delphi Drop Out]

Now they are saying they going to start repaying the U.S. taxpayers by years end. Sounds like a PR stunt or an atempt to manage the American Publics anger. It is not working. I bought GM for 35 years. Never again.

[Stop It]

It's beginning to look like GM expected to receive aid from the German Government after all.This explains GM's reversal of their original plan to sell Opel.
Note the last paragraph of this latest news release:...

"General Motors to decide on future of European plants within the next 2 weeks
November 16th 2009, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Nick Reilly, the head of GM's Adam Opel GmbH and Vauxhall divisions, told reporters that he knew workers at plants in Germany, Belgium, Britain, Spain and Poland were waiting to hear about the company's restructuring plans after it reversed a decision to sell the European business.

"We know it is disturbing and unsettling to have this hanging over your head for such a period of time and so we intend to take that decision in a relatively short period of time, approximately two weeks or so," he said after meeting the head of Belgium's Flanders region.

Reilly said the company was weighing different options to cut costs at the troubled Opel unit and "at the end of the day we're going to have to take some tough decisions somewhere in Europe to reduce our capacities."

Belgium is keen to keep Opel's Antwerp plant open and earlier this year offered up to 500 million euros to upgrade the facilities. Flanders Premier Kris Peeters said the money was still available under certain conditions, which he did not detail.

Peeters complained earlier that Belgium could not match the amount of financial support that Germany was willing to offer Opel and Opel's potential buyers - allegedly in return for keeping jobs in Germany while cutting jobs at other European plants.

Any condition protecting German jobs at the expense of other countries would break EU state aid rules.

Under pressure from EU regulators, Germany told GM last month that aid would be available whether it hung onto Opel or sold it to any buyer - and even if it rejected the sale to Canada's Magna International (TSX:MG.A) and Russian leader Sberbank, the deal that Germany openly favoured.

GM subsequently decided to ditch the planned sale."

[Stop It]

So Much for all the other theories as to GM's reversal.
Once GM was told it would receive aid--same treatment as Magna and the Russians--they changed their minds about selling Opel!!
No the truth is out, can we move on?

[JJFADS]

Again,(drum roll please) GM owns Opel and there’s nothing any of you two bit nuts can do about it. Continue whining until the cows come home, nothing changes.

Now that's just plain talk. Get it?

[whatever]

GM posts a loss of $1.15 billion even after taking $50 billion from U.S. and Canadian taxpayers.

G.M. is still faring poorly compared to its cross-town rival, the Ford Motor Company, which earned a $1 billion profit in the third quarter without the benefit of any government assistance.

And paying back government loans hardly constitutes a clean bill of health for G.M.

“It’s a little bit of a P.R. ploy, but they are saying that the war chest built up for the worst case may not be needed,” said Brad Coulter, a turnaround consultant with the firm O’Keefe and Associates.

G.M. said Monday that while it was still losing money, it had stabilized enough that it could take an important "symbolic" step and begin returning some of the $50 billion that the federal government (taxpayers) provided to help give it a second chance.

It's really just the same old PR ploy by GM. Tell everyone what they want to hear while doing something different. Business as usual at GM.

[The Authority]

Ignore JJFADS, he's stuck on stupid, as most are in that part of the country per Gen. Honore.

GM just devaluated its Opel unit beyond belief. It could have sold it and walked away with some cash. Now it is stuck with a brand that no one wants anymore, and the consumers have dried up. It committed brand suicide in its own domestic market, which is somewhat laughable, but also very sad. Now the CEO of Opel has stepped down amidst the turmoil.

The truth it, Opel is irrelevant in the current automotive landscape. There is plenty of global capacity at other automakers to make up its lost share. Ford is positioned very well in Germany to gain from GM's mistakes.

[JJFADS]

You sound like Obama.

Again, GM owns Opel and there’s nothing any of you can do about it. Moan all you like.

[The Authority]

Opel is now being shown as a liability on GM's balance sheet.

[whatever]

The Authority wrote:

Opel is now being shown as a liability on GM's balance sheet.

From the Financial Times 11/16/09.

When General Motors reversed its decision to sell off Opel/Vauxhall to Canada’s Magna, the US carmaker caused significant collateral damage to many governments in Europe. Nowhere was this more the case than in Germany, which had pledged €4.5bn ($6.7bn) in state aid to the prospective buyer of GM’s European operations. Chancellor Angela Merkel, at the end of a successful visit to the US in which she spoke before both houses of Congress, was informed of the decision by newswire. Certainly, this was not the style that one would associate with a world-class company.

It was to be assumed, at least, that GM had conducted a thorough strategic analysis and come up with a plan to allow Opel to stand on its own feet. Yet in the weeks that followed, high-ranking GM executives were to be found lobbying the federal and state governments in Berlin, Wiesbaden and Düsseldorf for state aid.

Such blackmail should be resisted. The German government, the governments of the European Union and the European Commission itself should refrain from getting involved. GM should not even think of asking.

This is even more important in a year when 20 of the EU’s 27 member states have failed to keep their budget deficits within limits set by the Maastricht treaty. It makes no sense to increase national debt to bail out floundering businesses.

Financial aid provided by the Deutschlandfonds package, a €100bn German fund that provides credit guarantees and loans for companies struggling to obtain financing, is also out of the question. This was intended to help companies sucked into the global financial crisis through no fault of their own. Opel’s problems go back much further. In the past 15 years its market share has halved, falling from 17 per cent to 8.4 per cent.

For more of the report click here.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5e75b840-d2e9-11de-...