Chrysler operations outside North America would not be affected by the bankruptcy filing in the US or the planned alliance with Fiat, a senior executive said on Tuesday.
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“Our organisation outside the U.S. stays intact. It doesn’t go through a Chapter 11 or anything comparable,” Thomas Hausch, Chrysler’s vice-president of international sales, told Reuters in Dubai.
“We have no plans to change any distributor contracts or do any major network changes,” he added.
Chrysler’s US car dealership network is on the verge of collapse, a bankruptcy court was told on Monday, as hundreds of dealerships close their doors and uncertainty about the automaker’s future drives consumers away.
Chrysler, which operates almost 3,800 dealerships in North America, has about 1,550 dealers in the rest of the world, according to the report.
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By GlobalDataBut plans for an alliance with Fiat do not include any changes to Chrysler’s dealership network outside North America and could pave the way into new markets for both carmakers, Hausch said. “The Fiat alliance might allow us to make additions in some of the white spots,” he added.
Hausch said Chrysler was very likely to halt production in the United States, Canada and Mexico in the next 30 to 60 days, but would continue manufacturing in locations including Egypt and Venezuela.
The production halt would not have an immediate affect on the supply of spare parts to dealerships around the world, he said.
“If this process takes 30 to 60 days, there is no shortage of spare parts we have to worry about,” he said, adding that completed cars would also be delivered in the coming months.
“There is at least two to three months (of stock in the pipeline), but then we also have the ability to ship between countries.”
The Middle East had about four months’ worth of completed cars in the pipeline, the region’s managing director told Reuters.
“We have something in the order of four months inventory on hand with additional cars on the way,” Trent Barcroft said. Chrysler’s Middle East vehicle sales fell 27% in the first quarter to 2,500, said Muhammad Aslam, the automaker’s senior manager of sales operations in the region.
Middle East car sales are down about a quarter from last year, Aslam said. Chrysler has about 19 distributors in the region and commands about 1.5% market share, he said.
