Sept 10 (Reuters) - General Motors said its board of directors has picked Canada's Magna, backed by Russia's Sberbank as preferred buyer for its European carmaker Opel.
The deal, with which Magna is beating out rival bidder RHJ, marks the end of a months-long struggle to secure the future of Opel, which employs around 50,000 people in Europe.
Following are some key facts about Opel and Magna:
OPEL:
* Adam Opel GmbH -- being spun off with British sister brand Vauxhall Motors -- is an integral part of the U.S. carmaker's GM Europe subsidiary, accounting for more than 70 percent of GM Europe's annual sales in 2008.
* PRODUCTION: In 2008, it made 1.4 million cars.
* MODELS: Agila, Corsa, Tigra, Astra, Zafira, Insignia (Europe's Car of the Year 2009), and Sports Utility Vehicle Antara.
* COMPACT VANS: Zafira, Meriva.
* SMALL VANS: Corsavan, Combo, Astravan, Vivaro and Movano.
MAGNA:
-- Magna International Inc. (Magna) is a diversified global automotive supplier. The company designs, develops and manufactures automotive systems, assemblies, modules and components, and engineer and assemble complete vehicles, primarily for sale to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of cars and light trucks.
OPERATIONS: It has 240 manufacturing divisions and 86 product development, engineering and sales centers in 25 countries.
EMPLOYEES: 82,000.
EUROPE: Its European operation includes 27,200 employees at 87 manufacturing facilities and 37 product development, engineering and sales centres. It also has a complete vehicle engineering and assembly operation in Graz, Austria.
(Writing by Carl Bagh, Bangalore Editorial Reference Unit; Editing and additional Writing by David Cutler; additional editing by John Stonestreet)