Word: gm
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...GM's chairman, Ed Whitacre, isn't convinced that a sale is in the company's best interests. He still sees GM as a global manufacturer and is determined to retake the No. 1 spot from rival Toyota. To do so, GM needs a European manufacturing base. At the very least, GM wants to avoid creating a new competitor by providing the dowry for a tie-up among Magna, Sberbank and Opel. So on Aug. 21, the GM board rejected Merkel's plan and sent point man Smith back to Berlin. (Read "Busting Out: German Pol Plays the Cleavage Card...
...intervene. Her rival for the chancellery, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Foreign Minister in the grand coalition government that joins Merkel's Christian Democrats and his Social Democrats, called Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her to get involved. But the message from Washington is that it's up to GM to make its own investment decisions. (See pictures of Obama in Germany...
...German commentators have criticized the almost amateurish way in which Merkel and Steinmeier have risked turning GM and Opel's misery into a transatlantic dispute. Neither GM nor the Obama Administration, which appointed 10 of GM's current board members, appears to like the idea of handing Opel - and GM patents - to a consortium at least partially controlled by Russian oligarchs. "Neither the Chancellor's phone call with the American President nor the Foreign Minister's with Mrs. Clinton impressed anyone," wrote the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in a commentary published on Aug. 26. "It is questionable whether their decision...
...GM is now exploring other options, including the possibility of raising money from other European sources. According to a report in the Times of London, U.K. business secretary Peter Mandelson is offering GM some $800 million if GM could guarantee the 5,500 jobs at its Vauxhall unit. Last week, Mandelson slammed the Germans for trying to buy protection for their car workers at the expense of GM employees in the U.K., Spain and elsewhere in Europe. (Read "Is This Detroit's Last Winter...
...election campaign that has lacked emotional issues, anger over GM and Merkel's handling of the Opel crisis could end up hurting her if it fuels support for leftist parties. This weekend should provide a hint at what could come in September, with elections in the states of Saarland, Thuringia and Saxony. "GM's management is leading the government around by the nose and abandoning the Opel workers," said Bodo Ramelow, a leading official of Die Linken, successor to the former East German Communist Party, who is running for governor in Thuringia. "It's time for the Chancellor to show...