GM could acquire 7% of PSA Peugeot Citroën. In 2009, Thierry Peugeot, who owns a third of the French company, was looking for partners. But he took three years to find one in Opel.
Both companies are suffering through major losses in Europe, where despite excess supply, plants have still not shut down like they have in the United States. Partly because of state-funded aid, they have only enacted temporary production cutbacks.
Along the same lines as other manufacturers, the two companies searched for strategies to collaborate such as unified production methods and other synergies in order to adapt their infrastructures to the real costs of the economic crisis that has lasted longer than expected. The consolidation of the European automotive sector is still progressing in fits and starts.
