Fasten your seatbelts!

The takeover of GM Europe by Magna et al should ensure that the European car industry is a much more interesting place in the next few years. As one of the biggest auto components makers in the world, Magna has long toyed with the idea of moving into car manufacture. At its annual meeting in Canada a couple of decades ago it unveiled a prototype of quite staggering hideousness that thankfully never made it into production. But although it assembles a few low-volume vehicles for specialty manufacturers like Aston Martin, it has no real experience of mass production of a high volume vehicle.

Having never made a car of its own, it follows also that Magna has never had to sell one. Its customers have always been the big manufacturers themselves. So it has little value to add to GM Europe on the marketing and sales side.

I don't make these points to suggest that Magna is a bad company. Far from it: it has revolutionised car making in North America by taking maximum advantage of the outsourcing programmes of the Big Three. But in taking over GM Europe, it's moving into new territory. That entails significant risks, especially with the global auto industry in so much trouble.

So much for the metal bashing. The real reason Magna's arrval promises to be interesting lies in the personalities of its principals. The company's founder, Frank Stronach, is still going strong as CEO at the age of 76. Frank is, shall we say, self-confident and not a little eccentric. Twenty years or so ago, I attended one of the company's annual meetings, at a time of prosperity for the North American car industry. Stronach had hired the flashiest concert hall in Toronto for the event, and put on a staggering buffet for the assembled guests. The crowds of Canadian seniors who seem to own stock in a wide range of companies solely in order to graze the nosh at the annual meeting thought they'd died and gone to heaven. The highlight, though, was Frank's speech to the adoring crowd. He prowled the stage like Frank Sinatra doing My Way, picked out by a single spotlight against an elaborate slideshow backgound featuring the company's latest achievements.

A couple of years later, the Big Three were in trouble and so was Magna. The annual meeting downsized to a conference room in a hotel and the buffet gave way to coffee and muffins. Magna nearly went to the wall that time, but thanks to Stronach's skill and charisma, it survived. With two of the Big Three on the canvas, it's suffering again now, but its balance sheet is still strong enough for it to come out on top in the bidding for GM. It's quite an achievement.

Then there's Frank's daughter, the fragrant Belinda. She became an MP for a riding north of Toronto in which Magna is by far the biggest employer, then crossed the floor of the House in exchange for a ministerial post. There are persistent rumours that her name may feature somewhere in Bill Clinton's little black book, which must have made things interesting when the current US Secretary of State was asked for her opinions of Magna's takeover proposal.

The media are describing Frank Stronach as "a man almost unknown outside Canada and his native Austria". That's about to chamge in a big way. It's going to be interesting.