GM May Sell French Transmission Plant

General Motors Co. has hired Barclays plc to seek a buyer for its transmission factory in Strasbourg, France. This marks the third attempt in four years to sell the facility.

GM says it wants to find a buyer who will continue to run the plant with its current workforce, suppliers and customers. London-based Barclays also will determine whether GM could keep the business by finding other transmissions to make there. The carmaker says its own efforts to do so have not succeeded.

The factory makes six-speed automatic gearboxes for BMW AG and for such GM models as the Chevrolet Camaro sports coupe and Cadillac CTS midsize luxury car. The plant produced 280,000 transmissions last year, mostly for vehicles assembled outside Europe.

The Strasbourg facility is not part of its Adam Opel unit, according to GM. It says the sale is not related to the Opel restructuring plan now being drafted or the equity alliance GM formed with PSA Peugeot Citroen in February. The latter is focused on shared purchasing and product development.

GM put the Strasbourg facility up for sale in September 2008 when it scrambled to raise cash, then left the operation behind in Chapter 11 in 2009. When no acceptably buyer was found, the company bought back the facility from "Old GM" for a token €1 in 2010. At that time, workers there agreed to such concessions as a two-year wage freeze and shorter vacations in exchange for job guarantees until about mid-decade.