Automotive News Europe/Reuters, 13th December, 2010
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese automaker SAIC Motor Corp. could be granted access to partner General Motor Co.’s UK sales network, a senior GM executive said on Monday.
“We have agreed in a memorandum that we would discuss the potential for MG to be distributed in the UK,” Kevin Wale, President and Managing Director for GM’s China operations, said at a Reuters’ event. “That’s what we are doing at the moment.”
Wale said no discussions have been held on sharing GM’s Dealer Network in North America. The UK deal would make SAIC Motor the only Chinese automaker to secure access to a partner’s overseas Dealer Network.
SAIC Motor became the owner of MG Rover’s 10,000-unit Longbridge plant in Birmingham, England, after a merger with its much smaller peer, Nanjing Automobile Group, in late 2007.
The Chinese automaker plans to start making the MG6 in the UK by the end of this year and sell them across the European Union, its Chairman, Hu Maoyuan, told Reuters in January.
In November, SAIC Motor bought a nearly 1 percent stake in GM when the top Detroit automaker returned to the stock market with a more than $20 billion initial public offering
[Source: Automotive News Europe/Reuters]
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Hmm… This is just what MG needs if it wants to sell significant numbers of MG6s in the UK, but what’s in it for GM? Why risk cannibalising their Astra/Cruze/Insignia sales?