With No Supplier for Saturn, Penske Walks

DETROIT (TheStreet) -- Penske Automotive (PAG Quote) ended talks to buy the Saturn brand from General Motors after an unidentified manufacturer indicated its board rejected a deal to make the cars.

GM had agreed to build Saturn vehicles for Penske through sometime after the end of 2011. It was after that that Penske was looking for another manufacturer to build the cars.

A Penske spokesman told the Associated Press there is little if any chance that the talks could be reopened. Without another supplier in place before the deal was signed, Penske couldn't run the risk of taking on Saturn.

The Wall Street Journal reports the other supplier was to have been France's Renault.

"Without that agreement, the company has determined that the risks and uncertainties related to the availability of future products prohibit the company from moving forward with this transaction," Penske said in a statement.

It was never Penske's intention to build the cars. The company was trying to determine if it was feasible to set up an independent distribution model for Saturn.

Without the Penske agreement, GM said the Saturn brand would be phased out.

-- Reported by Joseph Woelfel in New York .

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