Fiat says "life will move on" if it loses Opel bid

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said on Friday Chrysler was his main focus right now, shrugging off reports that General Motors Corp and Magna International had reached an agreement on GM's Opel unit.

The Italian automaker has competed against Magna, a Canadian auto parts maker, to buy Opel, part of a strategy to build itself into one of the industry's biggest players. At the same time, Fiat is trying to complete its partnership deal with Chrysler, which went into U.S. bankruptcy protection last month.

"I think we will just keep on focusing on what we have, and we're in the final days of restructuring of the Chrysler transaction, and I think that our objective is to close that deal," he told reporters.

"If the Opel transaction is not available to Fiat, life will move on."

Marchionne said he was going to the United States for meetings with U.S. officials on completing the Chrysler deal.

"We really need to get the organization (Chrysler) kick-started in terms of when it comes out of Chapter 11. That remains our primary objective."

The chief executive later told a Canadian business television channel that he would like to make Chrysler profitable in two years, working in the same timeframe it took him to turn Fiat around.

Fiat is not looking to become a partner with Magna on buying Opel, he said in Montreal, but Fiat would still rely on Magna as a major supplier of auto parts to Chrysler.

Even if Opel falls out of play, Fiat would still have an interest in acquiring GM's Saab, he said, but the shared architecture between Opel and Saab could complicate matters.

In addition, he said Fiat was definitely interested in GM's Latin American operations.

GM, which many in the industry expect to file for bankruptcy protection in the United States within days, is also looking to offload its Saturn brand, but Marchionne said Fiat was not interested in that unit.

Marchionne said in the television interview that he was interested in doing deals with firms making vehicles similar in size to its own product line, which likely means European players.

"You need to look at the auto space in terms of the platforms in which we operate, so the smaller to medium size cars, those are the ones that would really benefit Fiat most. It's anybody who's in that business, the French, even partly the Germans," he said.

(With additional reporting by Jeffrey Hodgson in Toronto; Editing by Richard Chang)