General Motors Co., seeking to salvage its European operations after emerging from bankruptcy, gave bidders for Opel two days to submit final offers.
Magna International Inc., RHJ International SA and Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. have until the close of business on July 20 to make bids for the German carmaker, GM said in a statement yesterday. The offers will be reviewed and a buyer may be proposed to Germany's Opel trust board by the following week, said three people with knowledge of the plans.
Germany, which agreed to provide 1.5 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in short-term loans for Opel's sale, is pushing GM to pick Magna as the winner, two people familiar with the situation said earlier. While investment group RHJ would cut fewer than 10,000 jobs at GM's European plants, compared with the 11,000 proposed by Magna, that doesn't make the bid more attractive, German Deputy Economy Minister Jochen Homann said.
Magna, Canada's largest car-parts maker, "still has an edge" because it has been in talks with GM longer, Homann said in a telephone interview after meeting with executives from Brussels-based RHJ in Berlin July 15. He added that "RHJ is catching up in the process."
GM's talks with bidders for Opel will clarify "final open questions" about financing in the next few days, German government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said yesterday in Berlin. Talks with RHJ and Magna are more advanced than with BAIC, he said.
Germany chose a pairing of Aurora, Ontario-based Magna and Russian lender OAO Sberbank as the preferred bidder for Opel on May 30. Beijing Auto and Fiat SpA also submitted proposals for the carmaker, which is based in the Frankfurt suburb of Ruesselsheim and employs 55,000 people across Europe.
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