Global auto sector faces big shakeup

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The global auto industry headed for a major shakeup Thursday as the boss of Fiat prepared to take charge of foundering US manufacturer Chrysler and German icons Porsche and VW moved toward an alliance.

A Fiat spokesman said Sergio Marchionne, credited with the rescue of the Italian auto giant, would become Chrysler’s chief executive once the US company’s bankruptcy procedure was complete.

Chrysler has agreed to an alliance with Fiat that will initially give Fiat a 20 percent stake. In return, Fiat will allow Chrysler access to its technology to enable it to produce the smaller, greener cars that are increasingly in demand.

Fiat is setting the pace of change in the global industry, acquiring a key stake in Chrysler while also stalking Opel, the German subsidiary of another troubled US auto firm, General Motors.

A senior GM executive said Thursday the company wanted to seal a deal for its European business “sooner rather than later” and was in talks with “many interested parties” beyond Fiat.

“We’re talking to many interested parties in terms of our European business, not solely Fiat, but other parties who have interests in making an investment in our European business,” said GM chief financial officer Ray Young.

Across the world, auto and auto-part makers have been driven into reverse gear by a slump in sales and a drop in profits that have pushed many governments into providing massive aid and old-for-new car incentive schemes.

In the United States, the oldest names in the auto industry were humbled by a surge in fuel prices last year, which made their big, gas-guzzling vehicles less attractive to consumers, and by a worldwide economic downturn.

Under such circumstances, analysts warned that Chrysler still faced a long road ahead as it tries to emerge from court protection and gain traction in a difficult North American market.

Fiat’s business dealings took on even more complexity on Thursday as the New York Times reported that General Motors was seeking a 30-percent stake in Fiat in exchange for GM operations in Europe and Latin America.

But the paper said Fiat was willing to cede only 10 percent of its equity to obtain the GM subsidiaries.

A measure of GM’s woes emerged Thursday when the manufacturer, facing bankruptcy, disclosed a loss of 6.0 billion dollars in the first quarter after burning through 10.2 billion dollars in cash.

The debt-ridden giant has taken more than 15 billion dollars in government loans and faces a June 1 deadline to complete a major restructuring plan, failing which it will be forced to follow Chrysler into bankruptcy court.

GM said it depleted 10.2 billion dollars from its cash reserves in the January-March period, leaving the company with 11.6 billion dollars, seen as roughly a minimum amount needed to keep the company in business.

GM chief executive Fritz Henderson nonetheless remained confident Thursday that the company could emerge from the flood of red ink.

“This is a defining moment in the history of General Motors,” he said, underscoring commitment to a rapid overhaul plan unveiled last month that would give effective control of the automaker to the US government and its main union.

Meanwhile German sportscar maker Porsche and giant Volkswagen, the world’s second-biggest producer behind Toyota of Japan, on Wednesday unveiled sketchy plans for a tie-up.

Analysts said the deal still raised a lot of sticky questions however.

“There are more questions remaining than answers,” Germany’s NordLB bank analyst Frank Schwope told AFP. Juergen Pieper from Metzler Bank added: “It’s not really clear how they will construct it.”

Following a special meeting of the Porsche family on Wednesday, Porsche and VW gave themselves four weeks to agree on an alliance.

Porsche would benefit from VW’s research and development and gain access to a vast auto parts purchasing network in addition to VW’s hefty estimated cash reserves of 10-11 billion euros (13.3-14.6 billion dollars).

That will help with the roughly nine billion euros in debt Porsche racked up trying to take over VW, a group that is 15 times bigger.

The latest developments are part of multi-faceted upheaval in the auto industry, accelerated by the world financial crisis that has sapped demand.

The role of General Motors and Chrysler looks set to decline as production shifts to smaller, more ecology-friendly cars and governments from the United States to the Middle East are the industry’s new leading lights.

Qatar and Abu Dhabi are seen as top candidates for a share of any Porsche-VW tie-up, while authorities in the United States and Europe now have a major say in the auto industry because of the billions of dollars (euros) they have lent car firms.

Analysts have been sceptical of massive consolidation but agree that auto makers will be forced to cooperate more extensively in research and development and production in order to achieve economies of scale.