UPDATE:China's BAIC Made Concrete Offer For GM's Opel -Source
July 03 2009 - 10:38AM
Dow Jones News
China's Beijing Automotive Industry Holding, or BAIC, has made a
concrete offer for General Motors Corp.'s (GM) Adam Opel GmbH unit,
a person familiar with the situation told Dow Jones Newswires
Friday. The person said BAIC's offer is non-binding.
BAIC handed in an offer worth EUR660 million for an equity stake
in GM's Opel and Vauxhall businesses, daily Financial Times reports
Friday, citing people close to the situation.
Meanwhile, German State Secretary Jochen Homann said Friday that
Canadian auto supplier Magna International Inc. (MGA) is the front
runner to take over Opel, but said that the U.S. parent company
still has to make the final decision on a deal.
"GM is negotiating with the bidders, not the (German)
government," Homann said at an industry conference in Munich.
In May, GM signed a memorandum of understanding to sell a
majority stake in Opel and its British sister brand Vauxhall to
Magna, whose bid is backed by Russia's Sberbank Rossia (SBER.RS)
and auto maker OAO GAZ Group. Opel's powerful labor unions have
already voiced support for the takeover.
The tentative agreement with Magna is backed by EUR1.5 billion
in bridge financing provided by the German government to keep Opel
afloat as parent GM filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S.
Company Web site: www.opel.de
-By Christoph Rauwald, Dow Jones Newswires; +49 69 29 725 512;
christoph.rauwald@dowjones.com