Putin, Union Boss Discuss Opel Bid

Huber, seated, meeting Putin at Novo-Ogaryovo on Tuesday, where they discussed a Sberbank-backed bid for Opel.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with Berthold Huber, president of Germany’s IG Metall labor union, in Moscow on Tuesday in an attempt to drum up support for a Sberbank-backed bid to acquire carmaker Opel.

Sberbank joined Canadian car parts maker Magna and GAZ, the carmaker controlled by Oleg Deripaska, to bid for the German unit of General Motors, and the consortium won the backing of the German government in late May.

The bid was hailed as a coup for Russia’s struggling carmakers, which hope that an influx of know-how from Opel could revive the sector. But it has also faced criticism from some German business leaders and politicians, as well as competition from rival bidders.

Huber — whose influential union represents Germany’s metal workers, including in the auto sector — thanked Putin for the invitation and stressed the “important role played by social organizations, including unions. We believe that they must be supported,” according to a translation of his comments on the government web site.

The transcript of their opening remarks did not refer to the Opel bid.

But a spokesman for IG Metall, Jörg Köther, confirmed by telephone that Sberbank and Magna’s bid for Opel was “one of the three or four topics” Putin and Huber discussed.

“Both agreed that it should be a necessary investment, and they are quite optimistic that the agreement between Magna and General Motors will be seen as successful,” Köther said, adding that the labor union still considered Magna’s bid as the best for Opel.

Opel’s workers own 10 percent of the company and would hold the stake under the Russian-backed bid. Sberbank would take 35 percent, Magna would take 20 percent and GM would keep 35 percent.

The German government was scheduled to hold a private meeting with GM executives in Berlin on Tuesday to discuss Magna’s bid as well as the rival offers from China’s BAIC and Belgian industrial holding RHJ International.

The haggling over loss-making Opel appeared to intensify last week, when BAIC made a non-binding offer to invest 660 million euros ($925 million) for a 51 percent stake in the new Opel, Reuters reported. Magna had offered to invest 500 million euros.

GM has until Friday to submit papers to a U.S. bankruptcy court. Selling Opel is part of the plan to create a new streamlined GM.

The Russian-backed bid received a vote of confidence Sunday from GM Europe president Carl-Peter Forester, who said the bid had “considerable” advantages over its competitors and that he expected a deal would be reached soon.

On Monday, Putin met with Deripaska, whose Basic Element holding controls GAZ, but it was not immediately clear what they discussed. At their last meeting in early June, Putin berated Deripaska over unpaid wages at a factory he owned in Pikalyovo. The government called it a “working meeting.”