Analysis: Fiat, GM continue to Look for Solutions

One week after the death of group patriarch Gianni Agnelli at the age of 81, Fiat is grappling with how best to pump new funds into its cash-burning auto unit - and many are now looking at General Motors for the key to salvation.

But the GM Corp. dismissed as "highly speculative" a report that its board would meet this weekend to discuss revamping a deal under which it could be forced to buy more of Fiat's crisis-torn auto unit.

Leading Italian financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, citing unnamed sources, said GM's board could meet today to mull a draft proposal for Fiat to relinquish or delay its option to sell to GM the 80 percent of Fiat Auto that GM does not already own. The option kicks in next year.

In return, GM would agree to help recapitalize Fiat Auto and probably increase its stake to 40 percent, Il Sole said. Other Italian newspapers have reported GM would pay about one billion euros to be let out of the obligation to buy all of Fiat Auto.

"That report is highly speculative. There is no board meeting this weekend," GM spokeswoman Toni Simonetti told Reuters yesterday.

"General Motors has a regularly scheduled board meeting on Tuesday, February 4th," she added. "We do not comment on the agenda of the board but it's fair to say that the board is apprised of all aspects of the business during their board meetings."

She declined to comment further. But also on Friday, Italian business daily MF said Fiat Chief Executive Alessandro Barberis could travel to the United States next week to meet GM officials to discuss changing the deal.

A Fiat spokesman declined to comment on either report.

The future of the GM deal is also likely to be on the table at a meeting between top managers from Fiat and its creditor banks, a financial source told Reuters on Wednesday.

Following Agnelli's death on January 24th, remaining members of the Fiat-founding family pledged to raise 250 million euros for the ailing company by recapitalizing their family trust, Giovanni Agnelli & C. Sapa.

But that is a small part of the five billion euros that the CEO of Banca Intesa, its largest creditor, said this week would be needed by Fiat Auto if it is spun off from Fiat.

The spinoff plan has gained increasing support in recent weeks as the Agnellis and the banks look for a way to separate the car unit, whose market share and sales have sagged in recent years, from the healthier other parts of the Fiat group.