PSA has closed the acquisition of Opel by General Motors faster than expected. This was announced by the French manufacturer – which owns the Peugeot, Citroen and DS brands – which intends to present in 100 days the new plan with which it aims to generate a positive free cash flow by 2020 and an operating margin of 2% by 2020. 6 and 2026% by XNUMX.
“We are proud to join the PSA group and we are writing a new chapter in history after 88 years with General Motors – commented Michael Lohscheller, new CEO of Opel who recently replaced Karl-Thomas Neumann – We will continue on our way to make technology 'Made in Germany' available to everyone. We have set ourselves the clear goal of bringing Opel back to profit by 2020.”
The market share of the new PSA group which includes Opel is around 17% in Europe, in second place behind Volkswagen.
“Today we are witnessing the birth of a true European champion – said the number one of PSA, Carlos Tavares – We will help Opel and Vauxhall to return to profitability and together we aim for new industrial benchmarks. Opel will remain German and Vauxhall will remain English. They are the perfect complements to our portfolio of French brands Peugeot, Citroen and DS.”
All co-management rights will remain unchanged for Opel employees. The CEO of the Ruesselheim-based company, Lohscheller, noted that “synergies with the PSA group, for example in purchasing and research and development, will play an important role. The combined group will record high savings of scale and synergies in procurement, manufacturing and research and development for 1,7 billion. The goal is to generate a positive operating cash flow by 2020 and an operating margin of 2% by 2020 and 6% by 2026”.
The cooperation between PSA and Opel already includes four models for Opel: the Opel Crossland X, which has been on sale since the end of last June, and the SUV Opel Grandland X, which is expected in the autumn, while the light commercial vehicle Opel Combo will be on the market in 2018 and the new generation of Opel Corsa from 2019.
Opel and PSA will continue to work with GM in the future and in addition to the development in electric propulsion, Opel aims to continue producing vehicles for the GM brands Buick and Holden. At the same time, PSA announced that the acquisition of GM Financial's operations in Europe is underway and should be completed by the end of the year once authorization from the authorities has been received.
