GM raises its contribution to 1,900 million Opel

General Motors will contribute 1.900 million to cover restructuring of its European subsidiary Opel / Vauxhall, which provides for the removal of 8,300 jobs, 900 of them on the ground Figueruelas Aragon, today announced President and CEO of Opel, Nick Reilly.

Reilly, who made the announcement at the International Motor Show in Geneva, said the General Motors contribution consists in injections of liquidity in loans. Thus, the multinational, initially expected to contribute 600 million euros for restructuring, bear most of the cost of the plan, amounting to a total of 3,300 million euros.
This increase in the contribution was precisely one of the great demands put to it by the German government to help them as Germanic Opel plants employ nearly half the group's employees in Europe. The other issue to be solved is the allocation and justification of the firings.
Something more than 1,800 million

Of the 3,300 million amounting to the cost of the plan, GM will take 1,900 million. For the remaining 1,400 million Opel will ask European governments together with an additional 415 million to prevent additional negative impact of adverse market development.

Thus, Opel reduced from 2,700 to just over 1,800 million euros the amount of funding guarantees will ask the governments of the European countries involved in the restructuring process. So far, estimates were that Spain should contribute about 400 million euros, a figure that now you should see substantially reduced. In any case, Spanish Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian said last week that no GM will "figure had asked some"

General Motors said that its contribution to the restructuring of Opel, which represents over 50% of total costs, is "a vote of confidence in the long-term strength" of its European subsidiary. The measure allows to avoid any risk of lack of liquidity during the restructuring process throughout this exercise.
Confidence boost

So the president of the U.S. multinational, Ed Whitacre, said that for the group is "vitally important" to demonstrate the commitment to the European operations. "Beyond the purely financial aspects, we see it as a big step towards injecting new confidence to customers, employees, partners, representatives of workers, dealers and European governments," he added.

Opel president stressed that the request for additional funding has been approved by the board of General Motors, and the measure was made known to the European Commission and governments of countries and regions involved in the process.
"We highly appreciate the growing support of General Motors, especially if we take into account their high need for liquidity and the restructuring of U.S. operations and the sustained weakness of the U.S. market," said Reilly.
GM reviewed 1.3 million cars in North America

The automotive group General Motors recall 1.3 million cars in North America to correct potential problems in management, related to 14 accidents in which one person was injured, the company said.

On 27 January, the security officials of the U.S. administration decided to open an investigation into 905,000 units of model 1100 Chevrolet Cobalt after receiving complaints about problems in management.

This campaign affects the Chevrolet Cobalt produced between 2005 and 2010 and the Pontiac G5 2007 to 2010 in the U.S. market. In addition, the campaign includes the Chevrolet Pursuit sold in Canada in 2005 and 2006, and the Pontiac G5 registered in 2005 and 2006 in Mexico.

General Motors has informed the initiative of the National Agency for Traffic Safety (NHTSA for its acronym in English), stating that the campaign is the result of an investigation opened last year.

The company stated that at low speeds, the steering wheel spins may require more effort than usual.