China's BAIC Interested in Opel, Fiat to Fire 10,000

The Opel saga continues with some fresh reports on the subject, this time surrounding a potential new bidder that might get involved in the acquisition process. According to a report by autocar.co.uk, China's Beijing Automotive Industry Corp (BAIC) is interested in purchasing the German unit but, due to the fact the bidding deadline has already passed, the company would place a bid only if the current negotiations fail.

At this time, the German government and GM Europe is negotiating with three bidders, as it follows: Fiat, who wants to include Opel in the alliance with Chrysler, Magna International, who plans to take over Opel with the help of Sberbank and leave 10 percent of the company to employees, and Brussels-based RHJ International.

And speaking of Fiat, the Italian manufacturer recently issued a statement to put things straight, emphasizing that rumors surrounding the acquisition and claiming it plans to fire up to 18,000 jobs in Germany are false. Opel currently has 25,000 workers in Germany and the local government insisted that an outside investors must do anything that's possible to avoid job cuts.

Nevertheless, Fiat might be still forced to turn to job cuts in case the deal with Opel goes through, but they would affect the European operations and not solely the German. According to the aforementioned source, Opel currently employees around 50,000 workers in Europe, with Fiat planning to lay off around 10,000 if the two sides reach an agreement.

On the other hand, Magna International repeatedly said it would try its best to maintain Opel's operations in Germany, a statement that made Germany officials hint that the Canadian-Austrian manufacturer might be "the chosen one".

"Under our concept the German sites are seen as assets and we want to keep as many jobs as possible," said Magna co-chief executive Siegfried Wolf.