2011 Buick Regal is almost a direct lift from the German Opel Insignia (Courtesy: MSheena)
General Motors announced today that it will not be dipping into any European government's coffers to fund the restructuring of its Opel division.
The company had made an appeal for several billion Euros of loan guarantees, but after being rebuffed by Germany last week, decided that it would forgo any further proceeding due to time constraints.
Why the newfound confidence in going alone, was it a big day at the horse races? The answer has more to do with the General's recent string of successes and its unwillingness to participate in a long drawn out process with other European nations who were still willing to offer loan guarantees.
Nick Reilly, President of GM Europe and Chairman of the Management Board of Opel/Vauxhall stated
The decision of the German government last week was disappointing and means that the conclusion of these guarantees is again likely to be months away. To be clear, our funding needs have not changed and we were led to believe that loan guarantees made available to other European companies under the EU program to help offset the impact of the global economic crisis, would be equally available to Opel/Vauxhall. But, after a very long process defined by governments, this has turned out not to be the case.
Germany been giving General Motors the cold should ever since the company backed out of its plan to sell the Opel division to Magna International. At the time, General Motors made the case that Opel was fundamentally important to its operations and that spinning off the division did not make much business sense. Many of GM's American offerings share considerable technology and engineering efforts with their German relatives.
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