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Marchionne recruiting activist investors to prompt GM merger

Sergio Marchionne may have been rebuffed in his previous advances at General Motors, but he's not about to give up that easily. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Fiat Chrysler chief is now turning to activist investors to help coax GM into joining forces. Marchionne has been a staunch and ceaseless advocate of the need for consolidation, arguing that the industry needs to amalgamate into larger groups that will share resources and reduce overhead. Under his leadership, the Fiat group consolidated its own operations, and officially merged with Chrysler last year. But he's also been pursuing additional mergers with the likes of Volkswagen, Peugeot, Ford, and Opel (to name just a few). Now he's pursuing a merger with GM, which has not shown much enthusiasm towards the idea. For one thing, GM is a much larger company, and probably doesn't need FCA as much as FCA needs it. For another, it has a troubled past with Marchionne, who in 2005 dissolved an agreed merger (of sorts) with GM, yet still managed to get the General to pay Fiat some $2 billion in the process. However, Marchionne is evidently hoping that the intervention of activist investors could compel GM CEO Mary Barra and company to proceed with a merger anyway. For precedent, he's looking at the recent negotiation between GM and some of its stakeholders that prompted the company to buy back $5 billion of its own shares, demonstrating Barra's willingness to deal with investors. The more compelling precedent, however, may have been set in 2006, when activist investor Kirk Kerkorian locked arms with Carlos Ghosn to get GM to consider joining the alliance between Renault and Nissan. GM ultimately declined, and Ghosn turned instead of Daimler (which of course has its own history of having merged with Chrysler). Only time will tell if this initiative will prove more successful, but one thing's for sure, and that's that Marchionne isn't about to relent in his pursuit of a major merger partner.

Peugeot's American future looks dead, but Stellantis intends to keep all brands alive

The years-old promise of a Peugeot return in the U.S. is looking bleaker by the second. Peugeot said the French brand would come back to sell cars in the U.S. five years ago, but now that FCA and PSA have transitioned to one Stellantis, that promise is looking a lot shakier. This news comes via a report from Car and Driver. When queried about Peugeot, Carlos Tavares, Stellantic CEO, offered this in response: “For the time being, I don't think that is part of the things that we want to prioritize for the next time window," Tavares said. "I think it's better that we funnel the talent, the capital, and the engineering capability of our Stellantis company to the existing brands to improve what needs to be improved and to accelerate where we need to accelerate, because we already have a very strong presence in this market." Tavares hasnÂ’t ruled it out entirely, but any kind of a Peugeot American renaissance is being pushed onto the backburner.  In good news for American brands, though, Tavares expressed great interest in keeping them all. Chrysler was the most worrisome of the bunch, as it only sells the aging 300 sedan and Pacifica minivan variants. Nevertheless, Tavares sees Chrysler as one of the “three historical pillars of Stellantis” and is eager “to give this brand a future.” Specifically, Tavares sees a high-tech future for the once-great American car company. Motor Trend reported on what Tavares spoke about in a call with the media. "It needs to rebound,” Tavares said. “We could think about what could be the next technologies in the automotive industry.” The obvious hint here is electrification and greater autonomy. Chrysler could theoretically become StellantisÂ’ electric showcase brand. ItÂ’s partway there with the Pacifica Hybrid PHEV minivan, but thereÂ’s still a long way to go for it to become the conglomerate's tech pillar. And then thereÂ’s Dodge and its powerful but emissions-heavy lineup. "We have the technology to deliver the torque, dynamics, and acceleration feeling, while also dramatically reducing the emissions," Tavares said. The Hellcat canÂ’t have a window-shattering 6.2-liter supercharged V8 forever, but it looks like Stellantis is at least committed to keeping the performance of DodgeÂ’s current lineup. Related video:

China's Geely says it has no plan to buy Fiat Chrysler — as FCA stock leaps

HONG KONG — Chinese carmaker Geely Automobile denied media speculation on Wednesday that it planned to make a takeover bid for Fiat Chryslerk Automobiles (FCA), the world's seventh-largest automaker. Geely was one of several Chinese carmakers cited in by Automotive News, which said representatives of "a well-known Chinese automaker" had made an offer this month for FCA, which has a market value of almost $20 billion. "We don't have such a plan at the moment," Geely executive director Gui Shengyue told reporters at an earnings briefing, when asked if Geely was interested in Fiat. He said a foreign acquisition would be complicated, but he did not elaborate. "But for other (Chinese) brands, it could be a fast track for their development," Gui added. However, a source close to the matter said FCA and Geely Automobile's parent firm, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, had held initial talks late last year, without disclosing their nature. The source confirmed Geely was no longer interested in FCA, noting that the parent company had only three months ago announced its first push into Southeast Asia with the purchase of 49.9 percent of struggling Malaysian carmaker Proton, a deal that also included a stake in Lotus. Geel's denial failed to dent FCA's stock. The price of its Milan-based shares has jumped more than 10 percent to a 19-year high since Automotive News first reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources, that FCA had rejected the Chinese offer as too low. FCA stock on the New York Stock Exchange rose sharply on Monday from $11.60 to $12.38 and on Wednesday was trading at $12.84. FCA declined to comment on Wednesday. FCA Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne has repeatedly called for mergers as a way of sharing the costs of making cleaner, more advanced cars, but he has repeatedly failed to find a partner and retreated from his search for in April, saying FCA would stick to its business plan. He has also spoken of spinning the successful Jeep and Ram divisions off from FCA. Europe's largest carmaker, Volkswagen, and General Motors have both said they are not interested in talks with FCA. On Wednesday, Geely Automobile reported a doubling of first-half profit, above expectations, as cars designed with Sweden's Volvo won over domestic consumers. Volvo is a unit of the Zhejiang Geely group, and has recently announced it will share its technology with Geely.