Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Hyundai in Talks Surrounding Chrysler Purchase



Though GM halted its conquest plans, Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Company is reportedly talking with management at Chrysler LLC about a possible purchase.
While GM's talks were about absorbing Chrysler as a whole, it's rumored that Hyundai is interested mostly in Chrysler for the Jeep portfolio. Although it's possible that brand could be sold off to an interested party, Chrysler's overseers at Cerberus Capital Management have repeatedly said they're not looking to sell off the company in part.Hyundai, which currently sells two subcompact cars and a micro-truck as Dodges in Mexico, is said to be a better merger partner than GM was. Should a merger occur, Automotive News hypothesizes Hyundai could keep more of Chrysler's existing infrastructure and employees than GM could.That angle could be enough to sell the U.S. Government on financing the transaction, a stumbling block that helped doom the GM-Chrysler talks. If it isn't, Chrysler could have another avenue via Renault-Nissan. Though the Franco-Japanese conglomerate halted negotiations for Chrysler once the GM proposal broke, Automotive News claims Cerberus plans to restart the dialogue in the coming days.

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