Jump to content
News
Reviews
Discussons
Activity
Create New...
Close
  • William Maley
    William Maley

    By William Maley •

    Rumorpile: Peugeot Family To Give Up And Cede Control To General Motors

    William Maley

    Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com

    June 28, 2013

    Here's a story that we're filling under the 'wait and see' file. Reuters is reporting that the Peugeot family, which currently owns a 25.4-percent stake in PSA Peugeot-Citroën automaker and 38.1 percent of voting rights is willing to give up its stake and try to revive a tie-up with General Motors.

    "GM faces the same overcapacity situation with Opel, and that's why PSA is trying to convince them to merge the two. The Peugeot family has now accepted that they'll lose control, so this is no longer an issue," said a person familiar with the matter.

    How dire is PSA Peugeot-Citroën at the moment? Well the two brands were the hardest hit in European sales slump and it looks like that trend will continue. Plus, the company could burn through all its assets by the end of this year if they don't get another injection of money and a groundwork plan.

    GM CEO Dan Akerson told reporters last week that the company has no plans to put in more cash into PSA.

    "We don't have any intention of investing additional funds into PSA at this time. If we see something changes, we'll evaluate that," said Akerson.

    A source says that GM is playing hardball to get "...assurances that it would be able to cut plants and jobs at reasonable cost."

    If General Motors did get control PSA Peugeot-Citroën, what would happen? The answer is a bit murky. But expect a number of plant shutdowns and laid-off workers to help save money. There is also talk about shared platforms between the two.

    However, there lies a huge problem with this scenario. The French Government, which made a very controversial 7 billion euro investment into PSA Peugeot-Citroën's financial arm, would not approve of large-scale workforce reductions and plant closures in the country.

    Source: Reuters

    William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

    Go to articles

    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments

    G. David Felt

    I think even the French gov is going to have a hard time not accepting cuts. It is either cut plants and jobs of the over capacity or a total loss. They will be forced to make some hard decisions and Europe will burn.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    dwightlooi

    Well, then leave PSA to the Socialist French Government. If they believe that companies can and should exist to provide jobs and benefits rather than to make profit with jobs and benefits being incidental to that, then let them turn it into a welfare program and let it go down together with Socialist France.

    • Agree 5
    • Disagree 3
    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    riviera74

    dwightlooi, I had to upvote you. PSA probably needs to die. Come to think of it, given Europe's car issues, GM should ditch Europe until all of the fallout truly hits and worms its way to its natural conclusion. Essentially, the USA went from several automakers to just four by Studebaker's death by bankruptcy in 1963. That consolidation took about three decades for that to actually finish. The problem with Europe is that they will not allow the badly needed consolidation required to salvage an auto industry in Europe at all, least of all the French and Italians.

    Social Welfare states work well when you can sell products the whole world wants. Canada and Australia are great examples of this fact. Germany sells cars everybody wants (whether they can afford it is another story.). France only has wine and cheese and tourism. Who would buy a Peugeot? PSA died in the USA back in the 80s and never returned.

    dwightlooi is right. It is past time to let capitalism cleanse Europe's dysfunctional auto industry. (Yes, I believe GM and Ford should dump Europe immediately!)

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    Drew Dowdell

    Well not Peugot, but I'd love to see Citroen survive and even return to the states. They'd sell the $h! out of their DS line, especially the DS4 and DS5, but the DS3 could do well here too. Add the C4 Aircross and you'd have a good starting lineup that American would just eat up.

    Reference pics:

    Citroen DS3

    CitroenDS31.6HDIDStyle-018.jpg

    Citroen DS4:

    style_silhouette_01.jpg

    Citroen DS5:

    citroen-ds5_472_6.jpg

    Citroen C4 Aircross

    citroen-c4_aircross_2013_001.jpg

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites


    Join the conversation

    You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
    Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

    Guest
    Add a comment...

    ×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

      Only 75 emoji are allowed.

    ×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

    ×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

    ×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

    ×

  • google-news-icon.png



×
×
  • Create New...

Hey there, we noticed you're using an ad-blocker. We're a small site that is supported by ads or subscriptions. We rely on these to pay for server costs and vehicle reviews.  Please consider whitelisting us in your ad-blocker, or if you really like what you see, you can pick up one of our subscriptions for just $1.75 a month or $15 a year. It may not seem like a lot, but it goes a long way to help support real, honest content, that isn't generated by an AI bot.

See you out there.

Drew
Editor-in-Chief

I've whitelisted
Continue without support

Write what you are looking for and press enter or click the search icon to begin your search