#Opel

To stay alive, Opel wants to scale down. The factory in Antwerp is being closed. With amazing results for Opel’s bottom line: Closing the factory costs GM around €400m ($532m) in termination benefits. GM and the unions reached an agreement on the termination benefits earlier this week, reports Reuters. There are 2,600 workers in Antwerp. Now do the math: $532m divvied up amongst 2600 workers is a little bit over $200,000 per worker. Ouch! Wait, there is more pain …

It’s a line of attack that Ford has been careful to avoid in the US, but Ford Europe is lashing out at GM’s request that European governments help finance the restructuring of its Opel division. Businessweek reports that Ford of Europe’s vice president of government affairs Wolfgang Schneider laid into GM’s request for $2b, saying:

Restructuring your business is your own job and you should pay for it yourself and you should not use taxpayer money. We are definitely against any support for Opel. The Europeans have made the choice that they would use their tax money to sustain companies and business and to sustain capacity levels that from an economical point of view are not sustainable. We do not believe that governments will be able to continue that policy forever. Governments run out of money, as well.

Smackdown! Now, why hasn’t Mulally been saying the same thing for the last two years?

Unheard-of news are emanating from Rüsselsheim. So unheard-of that Automobilwoche found it necessary to send out an Extra! Extra! Lesen Sie all about it e-mail to its subscribers: GM’s Opel, the very same company that wants to shed 8,000 of its 48,000 jobs in Europe, is short of people. They are hiring! One reason: Jobs are being exported from the U.S.A. to Europe.

Opels head shop steward Klaus Franz is mightily mad at Opel’s CEO Nick Reilly. Reilly told the London Times that the Ampera, Opel’s counterpart to the Volt, may be built in the Ellesmere Port plant in the UK:“The chances are quite good that the Ampera will come to Ellesmere Port as it is close in production terms to the Astra and will share many components,” Reilly said. In the meantime, Berlin cues Roberta Flack’s “Killing me softly” as a prelude for Opel’s funeral.

Germany’s Economy Minister Rainer Brüderle poured cold water on hopes for a quick decision on state aid for GM’s ailing Opel. GM expects $2.5b in state aid to come from European countries, most of it from Germany. But Germany, represented by Reiner Brüderle, is dragging its heels.

Cadillac relaunched [release in PDF format here] its perennially disappointing European effort last week, revealing that a new sales and import firm, Cadillac Europe, had been formed. Why would Cadillac double down on a market that it until recently blighted with its ill-advised Opel Vectra-based BLS (which bizarrely still appears at the cadillaceurope.com website)? Caddy boss Brian Nesbitt explains:

Europe is an important market for Cadillac. Re-establishing distribution of our premium offerings is good news for those who seek import exclusiveness

Except that Europe and America are fundamentally different markets, with different tastes in luxury. Unless the Cadillac boffins have some kind of alternate explanation for why Lexus sells like hotcakes in the US, but can barely move the needle in Europe and is resorting to Euro-specific models to make headway. But apparently success in the US luxury market is just a few European sales away. Really.

Opel’s Nick Reilly is casting worried glances towards Berlin and Brussels. What he hears from there makes him double his Maalox dosage. Or pop some local Rennies, if the heartburn meds are in short supply at the Apotheke in Rüsselsheim. Which they undoubtedly are. Nobody wants to help Reilly. Berlin doesn’t want to. Brussels doesn’t want to. Even Opel’s own auditors are no help. This tale would be better told by Kafka. He’s dead. I’ll try.

Imagine you’re a Belgian worker at GM’s plant in Antwerp. You’ve had to endure jokes about being the “sick man” of GM Europe’s family and had the sword of Damocles hanging over you. You then get told that you’re being shut down at a time when the economy is fragile, at best. How would you feel? Bad? Angry? Helpless? Well, GM’s just about you kick you while you’re down. The BBC reports that GM Europe are going to create an extra 700 jobs at their plant at Gilwice, Poland. But wait! There’s more! The reason these new jobs have come about is because they want to increase production of GM’s new Astra model, the very car which GM Antwerp made. The Gilwice plant will now operate 24 hours a day over three shifts. Ulrich Weber, Opel Spokesperson, told the BBC that “This has been planned for a long time, and will be in operation by the middle of the year,”. I’m sure that’ll come as some comfort for the Belgian employees. However, these new jobs in Poland don’t represent a change of heart from Vauxhall/Opel. They re-iterated their plans to cut 8,300 jobs across Europe. And by “across Europe” they mean those jobs in those expensive countries like Germany, Spain and The U.K.

The German magazine Der Spiegel got its hands on an internal document. In the paper, the German economy ministry gives an awful assessment of the business plan that Nick Reilly had circulated amongst interested parties. Interested parties being the countries where Opel has plants and where GM wants to collect €2.7b in government aid. The Spiegel’s article will appear in the printed issue on Monday. But there are some damning pre-releases.

Minister Rainer Brüderle has serious doubts about Opel’s restructuring plan. “The viability is questionable,” the internal memo says. The planned job cuts are “hard to understand.”

And once more, Germany’s all-time phobia when it comes to Opel aid emerges:

Here are the first reactions to Nick Reilly’s turn-around and begging plan for Opel. In one word: “Booooh!”

Roland Koch, Premier of Hesse, where Opel has its headquarters, where most of Opel’s jobs and countless suppliers are, should be most interested in the survival. What was his reaction? “According to our first assessment, it will be necessary that GM as the owner will increase its contribution considerably,” he said to Das Autohaus. Translation: “Put money on the table. Then we talk.”

Little know factoid: In 2008, Opel was the 7th largest employer in Hesse, followed by Volkswagen, only 2,800 jobs behind Opel, most in a parts factory and distribution center in structurally weak Kassel. When Opel has finished its reduction in force plan, VW will provide more jobs to the state than Opel. Koch knows which side his bread is buttered.

The unions, which should be most interested in preserving jobs, immediately shot down the plan.

Opel’s Nick Reilly today revealed details of Opel’s long-awaited business plan. Here are the highlights (and low points) as reported by Automobilwoche [sub].