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Opel poker

July 15, 2009

Although Canadian-Austrian auto-parts supplier Magna appears to remain the frontrunner to acquire Opel, a Belgian holding company has also expressed interest in the German automaker.

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Opel logo in front of the GM building
Opel has interest from yet another partyImage: AP&DW

Ripplewood Holdings International (RHJ), a Brussels-based holding company, is involved in talks with the economics ministry in Berlin about a rival bid for the German automaker Opel.

In late May, the German government agreed to support a bid for Opel from the Canadian-Austrian auto parts manufacturer Magna who teamed up with Russia's Sberbank in a bid for the carmaker.

The premier of the German state of Hesse, Roland Koch, has said that RHJ may not qualify for the same offer of financial backing that the government had negotiated with Magna.

"The public guarantee negotiated with Magna does not automatically apply to the financial investor RHJ," said Koch according to the Handelsblatt business daily newspaper.

RHJ's offer for Opel is reported to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 215 million euros ($330 million dollars) for majority control.

The offer could come as soon as July 15.

This new bid from RHJ International comes on top of a recent bid by the Chinese automaker Beijing Automotive Industry Company (BAIC) for Opel.

BAIC had hoped to acquire Opel as part of its plan to modernize China's automotive industry. It said that it would open up to 400 Opel dealerships in China in the next few years.

BAIC is offering a little over 700 million euros in equity for a 51 percent share of Opel, with General Motors keeping 49 percent.

RHJ officials have said that talks with GM are at an advanced stage but offered no further details.

av/AFP/dpa

Editor: Neil King

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