The Financial Times Deutschland said on Monday officials at GM would prefer to hand over Opel for nothing rather than transfer the money necessary to keep it afloat. This would also have the benefit of keeping GM as a minority shareholder in Opel, enabling the US carmaker to continue its close development and production with the Germans.

That GM would even consider handing over a majority stake of Opel for nothing shows just how hard the search for a private investor has been, the paper reported.

GM boss Fritz Henderson said on Friday that negotiations with six investors expressing serious interest in Opel would be concluded by early May.

“The issue should be finished in the next two to three weeks,” he said according to the FTD.

Most auto industry experts do not consider Opel and its British counterpart Vauxhall to be big enough to function as independent European carmakers without outside help.