Another tale of “are they or aren’t they” emerged today in relation to a possible alliance of some kind between General Motors and PSA Peugeot Citroen.
It has been widely reported that the two car makers are talking to each other, and have been for some time, but at the time of writing neither company has confirmed this.
Peugeot released a statement which said: "In the context of its globalisation strategy and improving its operational performance, PSA Peugeot Citroen looks at potential cooperations and alliances. Discussions are taking place and there can be no certainty at this stage that these discussions will result in any agreement."
All GM would say on the matter was: "We routinely talk to others in the industry but have no comment beyond that." The French labor minister finally let the cat out of the bag.
Last week, when we reported GM’s profits for 2011, we observed that although it had recently reemerged as the world’s biggest automaker, and had done extremely well in the United States, its Opel and Vauxhall brands continue to lose money in Europe.
Dan Ammann, senior vice president and CFO, said at the time: “Behind the scenes, we are working hard to eliminate complexity and cost throughout the organization to increase margins in all of our regions, and return Europe and South America to profitability. Overall, we have made good progress and we have more work to do.”
Perhaps he was hinting at possible alliances when he used the phrase “behind the scenes”. If so, I wonder what they are planning in South America.
