By Serena Saitto and Jeff Green

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- <U>General Motors Corp.</U> may get a fourth offer for its Opel and Vauxhall European operations after a Chinese carmaker submitted an expression of interest today, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The Chinese company sent a letter a day after yesterday’s deadline for bids, said the people, who declined to be identified because the negotiations are private. A specific offer may not materialize, said the people, declining to name the company.

GM is selling its European operations while preparing for a probable June 1 bankruptcy. The unit attracted bids from Italian carmaker <U>Fiat SpA</U>, Canadian auto supplier Magna International Inc. and <U>RHJ International SA</U>, a buyout firm that has automotive assets, including some former holdings of private-equity firm Ripplewood Holdings LLC.

The bids from Magna and RHJ include a cash component, while Fiat’s offer requires 7 billion euros ($9.7 billion) of financing to reorganize Opel, the people said. Fiat’s bid has two parts, including an offer for the Opel and Vauxhall units, and an alternative plan to also buy GM’s operations in Brazil and Argentina, one of the people said.

New Fiat IPO

Fiat Chief Executive Officer <U>Sergio Marchionne</U> has said he wants to create a new company that combines Fiat’s auto unit with Chrysler LLC, GM Europe and possibly GM Latin America. <U>Intesa SanPaolo SpA</U>, <U>UniCredit SpA</U> and Goldman, Sachs & Co. will be the global coordinators for the initial public offering of that automaker, Fiat said today in a statement.

The statement didn’t specify whether the banks will provide financing needed to close the transaction. <U>Gualberto Ranieri</U>, a spokesman for Fiat in Turin, Italy, declined to comment.

Marchionne has said his bid for Opel wouldn’t require cash. He would offer “100 percent of Fiat’s auto unit clean of debt and assume Opel debt,” he said in a May 6 interview.

GM is trying to cut $1.2 billion in costs and win 3.3 billion euros ($4.6 billion) in European aid to keep Opel operating independently of U.S. operations.

The German government will contribute 750 million euros toward a financial lifeline for Opel and the four states with its factories will provide the remainder, said <U>Juergen Reinholz</U>, economy minister of Thuringia. Opel also operates in the U.K., Spain, Poland and Belgium.

<U>Arnaud Denis</U>, a spokesman for RHJ, declined to comment. <U>Renee Rashid Merem</U>, a spokeswoman for GM in Detroit, Opel spokesman <U>Frank Klaas</U>, and <U>Daniel Witzani</U>, a spokesman for Magna in Europe, couldn’t immediately be reached.

To contact the reporter on this story: <U>Serena Saitto</U> in New York at <U>ssaitto@bloomberg.net</U>.