PSA Peugeot-Citroen, Europe’s second-biggest automotive group, is doing it tough with declining sales resulting in massive over-capacity at its plants (not that it’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’ in that situation).
This has the company’s unions and 77,000 employees nervous but currently PSA plants are actually doing better than some in Europe in running at 71 per-cent of capacity.
The Peugeot family still holds more than one-quarter of the company’s shares and 38.1 per-cent of the voting rights despite last year’s €1 billion sale of seven per-cent equity to General Motors.
Part of the GM deal is platform and cost sharing across the various brands (Peugeot, Citroen, Opel and Vauxhall) which we will see in Model Year 2106. Not that Opel is smelling like a rose at the moment – GM’s German subsidiary posting a massive loss and currently running its plants at around two-thirds capacity.
Over the weekend, stories emerged that the Peugeot family is keen to offload further equity in the company to keep it afloat and all eyes turned to GM. However the American giant has flatly denied any plans to increase its holding.
GM’s reluctance may open the door for Chinese suitors – PSA has previously engaged in talks with the Dongfeng Group.
