Representatives of the Citroën UK finance
team, as well as spokespeople at PSA Peugeot Citroën and GMAC have
all said it is too early to comment on what PSA’s alliance with
General Motors (GM) might mean for UK car finance.
The deal, announced on Thursday, saw GM take a
7% stake in the French manufacturer and is reckoned to be worth
$2bn (£1.25bn) in cost savings to both companies. PSA is expected
to raise €1bn (£838m) in capital from the deal.
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Although both companies will begin a process
of restructuring, the specifics of the deal, including changes to
finance operations, are yet to be confirmed.
The UK finance team at Citroën said it didn’t
know what the deal would mean for them and a spokesperson for PSA
in Paris told Motor Finance that the company had “nothing
to say so far” regarding finance, and that the agreement did not
yet involve any predictions.
A spokesperson for GMAC similarly said any
comment at present about car finance for the brands in the UK would
be no more than speculation and emphasised that the deal was
between the manufacturers, and concerned their manufacturing
operations.
The two companies will share engineering
development and expect the first joint model to be launched in
2016.
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By GlobalDataUpdate 6 March 2012
Speaking at the 82nd International Motor Show in Geneva, PSA
vice president Frederic St Geours confirmed the idea of a
“strategic global alliance” was begun with GM in 2011 and
that priorities for the two companies would be to work on joint
purchases and model development.
The deal, of which St Geours said there would be “no risk
of us repeating” the failed Fiat-GM alliance, would allow the two
companies to spend $125bn (£79bn) on purchasing, on which PSA
previously had spent $35bn (£22bn), and buy eight million tonnes of
steel, where PSA had previously bought two million tonnes.
St Geours added that the alliance would allow PSA to expand
beyond a “weak” European market “at reduced cost and
better time”.
richard.brown@vrlfinancialnews.com
