Samstag, 6. Juni 2009

New Developments Regarding Opel

According to Der Spiegel, the combined equity investment of Magna and Sberbank will be as little as 100 m € according to the MoU. The press used to quote a figure of 500 m €, but apparently, 400 m € of this will be in the form of a collateralized loan, which will only be converted to equity years later (it's not clear on what basis and under what terms and conditions).

And according to the FTD, Opel will have to pay high licence fees to GM for the Intellectual Property:

3.25 % of revenues until 2015, 5 % thereafter.

This adds up to 6.5 bn € over the next 10 years, and comes on top of a cash purchase price of 300 m € for the 55 % of the shares bought by Magna and Sberbank (somewhat at odds with the 100 m € investment figure quoted by Der Spiegel).

Wow. 6.5 bn €. Based on 45,000 Opel/Vauxhall employees Europe-wide, that's 150,000 € per job.

Wouldn't it have been a lot cheaper to go with Fiat and use Fiat technology, which would be free once Opel is merged into Fiat. Their technology can't be that much worse, can it?

2 Kommentare:

  1. I fear from that it is not that easy.
    Many of the opel design probably is owned by the GM,so at the end of the day even if german engineers made the design but they have to pay to the americans for that.
    This could kill it.

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  2. I suppose there is no such thing as an "objective arms length" licence fee. Rather, the determination of the fee is probably quite arbitrary, and depends on the strength of both parties' negotiating position...

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