BERLIN: The official signing to seal the takeover of General Motors' Opel unit by Canadian parts manufacturer Magna Internationalhas been delayed by two days and will be completed on Thursday, a German newspaper reported.

The long-drawn out saga was supposed to be closed on Tuesday but further negotiations with union officials and questions of financing have pushed the signing back, business daily Handelsblatt said.

Under a preliminary deal announced in Berlin with great fanfare onSeptember 10, GM is poised to sell a 55-percent stake to Magna and Russian state-owned lender Sberbank.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, keen to safeguard the jobs of Opel's 25,000 German employees, half the total, agreed to sweeten the deal with 4.5 billion euros' (6.7 billion dollars') worth of public money.

Magna is reported to be looking to take around 10,500 workers off the payroll.

But the deal has been beset in recent weeks by wrangling between European countries over financing.