Beijing Auto says fails in bid for GM's Opel brand

Shanghai, July 24 (Gasgoo.com) China's Beijing Automotive Industry Corp. (BAIC) said today it had failed to reach an agreement with General Motors on the buying of GM's Opel unit in Germany due to intellectual property issues, Reuters reported.

"In the negotiations over intellectual property, we have been in constant communications with General Motors," the company said in a statement. "Regrettably, both parties failed to reach agreement on (the intellectual property) issue."

In a statement released yesterday by GM Europe, the automaker's chief negotiator John Smith said that the company has "agreed to continue detailed talks with Magna and RHJI to secure Opel's future." This implied that the third bidder, China's Beijing Auto, failed to make headway in the talks.

A Beijing Auto spokesman told The Associated Press that "We have not received notification from GM" when asked whether BAIC was out of the running.

GM now will focus talks with Canadian auto-parts maker Magna International Inc (with its partner Russian lender Sberbank) and RHJ International SA, a Belgium-based investor.

Earlier this week, German government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm told a news conference that Canada's Magna was still Germany's preferred bidder for Opel.

Industry analysts said the German government has limited confidence in the global management skills of Beijing Auto while GM is not willing to sell its Opel brand to a Chinese carmaker to rival its profitable ventures with China's auto giant SAIC.