Opel, General Motor Corp.'s German unit, will talk to "several" potential investors interested in buying a stake in the carmaker.
"The talks with a couple of interested parties will be held in the coming days," Joerg Schrott, a spokesman for the company, said in a telephone interview today. He declined to identify the potential investors.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported today that additional investors from Russia were interested in buying a stake in Opel. The newspaper didn't identify the parties and didn't say where it got the information.
Schrott and a Fiat spokesman, who didn't want to be identified, declined to comment on German media reports that Fiat SpA's Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne will travel to Berlin on May 4 for talks with the German government and offer less than 1 billion euros ($1.33 billion) for a stake in Opel.
Fiat, which signed a partnership agreement with Chrysler LLC on April 30 after five months of negotiations, has said repeatedly it is also interested in Opel. The German carmaker needs to find an investor because it's running out of cash as its parent faces potential bankruptcy by June 1.
"Now we have to concentrate on Opel," Marchionne said in an interview with La Stampa. "They are our ideal partners."
Besides Fiat, North America's largest auto-parts maker Magna International Inc. and unidentified financial investors are vying for stakes in Opel, which sells cars in the U.K. under the Vauxhall brand. Detroit-based GM, surviving on U.S. loans, can't provide financial support to Opel and is looking to sell a stake in the carmaker to secure 3.3 billion euros in European state aid.
