While other car company chiefs hunker down to survive their industry’s worst downturn in decades, Sergio Marchionne on Thursday put himself forward as a leader of its next phase of consolidation.

When investment analysts quizzed him about reports that Fiat was among the potential suitors for General Motors’ European arm, he said only that there had been “no direct conversations with Opel”, the German unit that forms the core of GM’s business on the continent, in which GM is selling a controlling stake.