According to this news article, Fiat would like to add GM to its ownership.
There is no way in HELL that would ever be allowed to happen
There is no way that “deal” would EVER be approved
Just imagine if Fiat owned 2 of the big 3 . . . the terms monopoly and lack of competition come to mind
Not to mention, I’m not sure if these new Italian GM cars would be better or worse. GM had some bad vehicles, but so did Fiat. A lot of Americans don’t have fond memories of Fiat
By the way, I find the title of the article to be misleading. The title talks about a merger, but the article itself talks about a hostile takeover
All in all, I find the whole idea extremely disturbing
If this hostile takeover were to happen, I believe MANY american workers would be negatively affected
Yeah I heard this before and it appears it is some kind of a dream in the demented mind of Fiat. They’ve got a lot of work to do before they go belly up themselves and take Chrysler with them. Of course in Italy, everyone drives those little Fiat 500’s that haven’t changed for 40 years but the US market is quite different.
If Fiat makes a serious move to acquire GM, the inevitable anti-trust legal dispute will be messy. On a lighter note, I have a friend who has joked he wants a GMC Denali with a Hemi engine. 
I would like to see the average size and weight of the American auto,decrease by about 10 %,I dont think there should be such a thing as a hostile takeover,maybe I’m missing something?
“A lot of Americans don’t have fond memories of Fiat.” True that. A lot of Americans don’t have fond memories of GM either, and they’ve been selling cars here all along. Between poor quality, the way they shafted their dealers, suppliers, workers, and to say nothing of the entire city of Flint, MI, a lot of people are soured on GM, myself included. Oh, let’s not forget the ongoing ignition switch debacle too.
But I totally agree that it is unlikely the FTC and our government at large would allow this merger, and I think it would be a bad idea to allow Fiat that much power, and damaging in the long term to our economy, regardless of what I personally think of GM.
There was news last winter about Marchionne’s ambitions concerning a merger. GM said then that they are not interested, and the same seems true now. Why would GM want to merge with FCA, a company with 4 of the 5 models with the most dissatisfied buyers? That’s no way to positively impress your investors. Of course, what GM’s leader says about the merger in public may be different than what she says in the board room. I think GM owes it to their shareholders to seriously review any offer of this type, but it doesn’t make sense from anyone’s viewpoint except FCA’s.
This match-up seems like the unholy mating of a giraffe and a hippo. Both large animals but completely incompatible DNA. The mating “geometry,” as it were, is also more than a little problematic. Fiat has what it sees as a “hippo’-like” animal in Chrysler. It doesn’t fully understand the beast but it falls into the species “buffalo”. Still no genetic match but at least the “geometry” is closer. But they are clueless!
It took the Germans at Daimler years before they finally admitted they couldn’t manage the American car company. The cultures were far too different. BMW learned this hard lesson in Britain at Rover and Land Rover. Being stubborn Germans, they stuck it out until it hurt too much to continue and they bailed. The reverse is true of GM and Opel, their German subsidiary. Although losing money for decades, GM has benefited as a whole from Opel but the Americans are more stubborn than the Germans and keep it running.
I think the Italians at Fiat have discovered more quickly than Daimler that they cannot manage the Americans at Chrysler and that a GM tie-in (or tie-UP) is their only hope for this venture not to sink the ship.
GM had a similar experience with Saab. Saab had significantly higher costs than their competitors because they overbuilt their cars. The hardtop could be dropped (inverted) onto its roof and it didn’t collapse. The same was done with a comparable BMW and the roof collapse instantly and completely. You can see it on line as it was an homage segment to Saab on Top Gear.
Anyway, the costs were too high and GM left specific, detailed instructions to change designs and use standard GM parts to save money. But costs didn’t go down significantly because Saab simply ignored order from headquarters. And then Saab was cut loose.
Saab had 2 problems with GM. GM tried to make them more conventional and the Saab culture did not mesh with GM/Opel. When they got bought by GM, they were already building more conventional, less “Saab-like” cars on the shared Saab 9000 platform they designed with Volvo and Alfa. The key went up to the steering column, the engine went sideways, the suspension became struts in front. All very un-Saab-like.
GM then bought them and fed in their parts to reduce costs and further diluted the “Saab-ness.” Saab resisted this. Opel controlled Saab at this time and Saab did not agree with decisions being made. Sales went down in the US and Europe. Saab’s traditional buyers liked quirky. Saab management convinced GM (sort-of) to add more “Saab” to their designs. The key went back to the floor, the cars shared far less GM content and quirky came back. Sales in the US never did. As @jtsanders correctly pointed out, costs went up and sales went down until the recession hit. GM couldn’t afford Saab anymore. Saab was closed because a buyer could not be found.
With respect db, I think you’re overreacting. Car companies and percentages of car companies are now bought and sold as if the industry were a monopoly game. Clearly GM has done a horrible job managing themselves, ultimately needing a bailout to keep the vultures away. Perhaps Fiat could do a better job with the resources.
When I was a young man the auto industry was stable. There were GM, Ford, Chrysler, and the imports were all niche players. Companies like Tucker had already been scrubbed out. The industry doesn’t bear even a slight resemblance to that model anymore. It hasn’t for years.
Welcome to the “global economy”.
mountainbike
With all due respect, I don’t think I’m overreacting
I think it would be a disaster in so many ways . . . emotionally and financially, to name a few . . . if Fiat somehow managed to add GM to its roster
It sounds like Fiat wanted to merge with GM, but GM declined the offer. And now Fiat won’t take no for an answer and is contemplating a hostile takeover
If that were to happen, I think most of the negative consequences would be in the US, not Italy
With all due respect to mopar fans, Chrysler is the laughing stock of the american industry. For the longest time, they were odd man out and couldn’t truly compete with Ford and GM. Then they got bought by Daimler. For various reasons, they got spit out again. Then they got bought by that group . . . I forget the name . . . who seemingly had no intention of doing anything with the company. Then Fiat bought them
yup . . .
I don’t know of any kinder way to put this . . . Chrysler is like that person at the party, that everybody has been with
Do we really want GM heading down that road?
I also agree that GM has very often produced bad cars and hasn’t exactly had a good attitude
Many others are also guilty of this
But I don’t think it’s good for us to have the attitude that it’s okay for this hostile takeover to happen
Personally, I don’t think it will happen
I’m going on the record . . . I’m 100% against a hostile takeover
Fiat Chrysler buying GM? That sounds as ridiculous as Kmart buying Sears, oh wait. . . probably have the same kind of results too. . .
The reality is that Sears exists in name only as far as I can determine. Their stores have been sold to privates as well as their brands. The Sears holding company retains the real estate which makes them mainly a landlord not a realtor. Maybe I missed something.
Now I will agree there were issues with GM, but while we pile the hate on GM, lets not make the mistake of thinking Ford was much better. Yeah they avoided the bailout by hocking the company assets ahead of time but take a look at their plant closings and openings where they are shifting production out of the US. And take a look at all the happy Ford workers who are being screwed in the three tier pay plan. The new hires are barely in the $10/hr range with little hope of a future while the concerns of the older folks seem to by trying to get enough production in the plants to keep it open and avoid the closings and transfers.
I’m certainly no expert and I really love the histories of both GM and Ford but woe to us for what we have wrought with the EPA and imports and global production. I’m not sure where this ends or who benefits.
In this discussion at least, I don’t think anybody argued that Ford “was much better”
Yeah I know but there are only two US companies left so seems to me we need to understand both have warts and be somewhat protective of them lest we lose them.
I’d trust Sergio Marchionne about as far as I could pick him up and shot put him…
I’d also suspect that it’s a power grab with the potential to squeeze the taxpayers yet again while the GM stock price still sucks and using the tired old mantra about “saving jobs”.
Is this a repeat of the $2 Billion Fiat got out of GM in 2005 after their last ‘partnership’? If I was Fiat, I might try for a repeat.
Sounds like another Carl Icahn; do a hostile takeover, suck out and sell off assets, dump the remnants and leave employees, communities, and shareholders to deal with the ruination and bankruptcy.
Db, unless one of us is on GM’s board, it doesn’t matter what our attitude (or opinion) is. It’s business, pure and simple. No point getting upset about it. Hostile takeovers are part of the landscape. The old ways of building market share by building better product and marketing it better have given way to building market share by buying out companies that the board feels can complement their existing market penetrations, either by providing additional market paths or by complementing resources. Frankly, at least Chrysler is still alive.