欧洲车企新年面临老问题

    新年快乐

    很快，汽车业的目光就将聚焦到底特律，北美国际车展（North American International Auto Show）即将在此盛大开幕。本届车展上，汽车业的大佬们将为各种令人激动的全新车型揭开面纱，对市场份额做充满希望的预测——预测的份额加起来将超过100%——同时祈祷人们忘了他们一年前这个时候做的那些落空的预言。

    人们关注的焦点转移，这是西欧厂商乐于见到的情形。西欧近期发生的各种事件可谓在悲剧和闹剧之间大起大落，使各大厂商的运势判若云泥。法国的厂商一直深陷衰退，同时苦于产能过剩，目前正想方设法努力止损；而德国的一些厂商却似乎凯歌高奏，轻而易举地迎来一个又一个胜利。在新年发生的一系列事件中，又冒出来一件让大家意想不到的荒唐事，福特公司（Ford）的一位前高管被控向前妻隐匿上千万美元，为此将面临牢狱之灾。

    本文将列举一些不如人意的情况，当然也会谈到一些亮点。

    西欧经济陷困境

    继糟糕的一年之后，西欧的汽车销售雪上加霜，12月猛跌了16.2%。整个欧洲的车市处于近20年来的最低点。需求剧降，加之长期产能过剩，正将几家汽车厂商逼向绝境，而在未来数月间，它们预计将面临更加痛苦的处境。最新预测称，2013年西欧的汽车销售将继续萎缩3%到5%。

    标致很受伤

    没有哪家厂商比标致雪铁龙集团（PSA Peugeot Citroën，下简称PSA）伤得更深了。作为一度高踞西欧市场份额第二的强大企业，这家法国车企的市场份额已跌至12.7%。去年，它的股价下跌了44%，目前公司正在大笔烧钱。本来PSA在南欧市场占有很大份额，但这一地区恰恰是经济衰退的重灾区。它法国的市场萎缩了13.3%，西班牙市场萎缩了14.9%，意大利市场也重挫了20.9%。据新上台的法国社会党政府称，过去20年来，PSA犯了战略性失误，即没有拓展国际市场。曾经想过要在美国买一辆标致或雪铁龙的消费者对此应该都深有体会。

    标致脱困遭遇官僚困境

    为了恢复生机，PSA推出了总额高达240亿美元的再融资计划，其中包括100亿美元的国债担保。这项计划本来只是一个纯债务融资计划，但现在却被视为资产重组，意味着它必须经过欧盟（EU）位于布鲁塞尔的公平竞争委员会（competition authorities）的审核。如果监管层认为这项财政援助违反了欧盟竞争法，则PSA可能会被迫在已有让步的基础上再次做出让步，比如取消分红和奖金，在董事会中安排政府指派人员等。

    标致与欧宝的合作仍需数年才会有收益

    标致在努力自救的过程中曾与通用汽车（General Motors）旗下的欧宝（Opel）结盟，以便在采购和工程上每年削减20亿美元的成本。但这个联盟究竟能带来什么好处，双方仍在静静观望。2012年头11个月，随着欧宝在欧洲市场的份额从7.3%跌至6.7%，PSA的份额也随之从12.5%跌到11.7%。这两家公司都急于脱困，但它们联合开发的首款车型要到2016年才能面市。通用汽车的首席执行官丹•埃克森坦承，由于双方在开发一些新车型上存在“诸多变数”，因此合作进程推进缓慢。

    Happy New Year

    In less than 72 hours, the attention of the automotive world will laser in on Detroit, scene of the North American International Auto Show. There, the car world's top executives will unveil exciting new models, make hopeful projections about market share that collectively add up to more than 100%, and hope that no one remembers their failed forecasts from a year ago.

    The shift in focus is welcome in Western Europe, where fortunes are sharply divided as recent events have ricocheted between tragedy and farce. Mired in a deep recession and burdened with overcapacity, automakers in France are frantically trying to stop their bleeding, while some of their German counterparts seem to skip easily from triumph to triumph. Adding an unexpected note of folly to the New Year's events was the jail sentence handed down to a former top Ford executive accused of hiding a multimillion dollar fortune from his ex-wife.

    Here are some of the lowlights -- and a couple highlights for good measure.

    Western Europe's economic woes

    Capping what has been a miserable year, car sales in Western Europe hit the down escalator in December, falling 16.2%. The European market is at its lowest level in nearly 20 years. Slumping demand, in connection with chronic overcapacity, is driving several automakers to the brink, and more pain is forecast in the coming months. New estimates suggest that Western European sales will shrink another 3% to 5% in 2013.

    Peugeot is bleeding

    Nobody is hurting worse than PSA Peugeot Citroën. Once a strong No. 2 in West Europe, the French automaker's market share has fallen to 12.7%. Its stock price has fallen 44% in the past year, and the company has been burning cash. PSA has a particularly large presence in Southern Europe, which has been hit hard by recession. Its market is down 13.3% in France, 14.9% in Spain, and a bruising 20.9% in Italy." According to the newly installed French socialist government, PSA made strategic mistakes over the past 20 years by not expanding internationally -- which anybody who has tried to buy a Peugeot or Citroën in the U.S. would know first-hand.

    Peugeot bailout snarled in red tape

    To get rolling again, PSA has put out together a $24 billion refinancing plan, which includes $10 billion in state loan guarantees. The plan was initially presented as a pure debt refinancing, but now it is being viewed as a restructuring, which means it has to be examined by EU competition authorities in Brussels. If regulators decide the assistance violates EU competition law, PSA could be forced to make concessions on top of those it has already made, such as the elimination of dividends and bonuses, and the placement of a government appointee on its board of directors.

    An Opel payoff for Peugeot is years away

    In its struggle to save itself, Peugeot arranged an alliance General Motors' Opel, to save $2 billion a year in purchasing and engineering. They're both still waiting to see the benefits of that union. PSA's European market share in the first 11 months of 2012 fell from 12.5% to 11.7% as Opel's dropped from 7.3% to 6.7%. Both companies are in a hurry to get healthy, but the first jointly developed models won't hit the streets until 2016. GM (GM, Fortune 500) CEO Dan Akerson admits the two automakers have been slow to work together because of "a lot of variability" between how the two wanted to engineer some new models.