By Poornima Gupta

Chrysler Vice Chairman Tom LaSorda said he could not address the question of whether Chrysler's owner, private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, was shopping the company to potential buyers in its entirety.

"Those things are all dealt with at the Cerberus level, and at this point in time I just can't speak to that," he said.

LaSorda, speaking to reporters on a conference call, was responding to a Reuters report from Tuesday that cited people with knowledge of the discussions as saying that Chrysler had been in talks to sell assets to Renault-Nissan and auto parts supplier Magna International.

"This company is going to be around," LaSorda said. "We are not going under."

LaSorda said Chrysler had not had any discussions with Renault SA, which owns a 44 percent interest in Nissan Motor Co Ltd. Renault also denied any such talks had taken place.

Cerberus, which operates Chrysler as one of the companies in its portfolio of over 30 firms, had no comment. Nissan also had no comment but a Renault spokeswoman said no talks were under way between it and Chrysler or Cerberus.

Chrysler, which was acquired by Cerberus in 2007, saw its sales drop 30 percent last year and has been forced to throttle back on new investment. It received $4 billion in emergency government loans this month and plans to seek another $3 billion.

Analysts have questioned whether Chrysler, which burned through $9 billion in the second half of last year, can survive without a larger merger partner.

POLITICAL AND FINANCIAL PRESSURES

Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican and one of the auto industry's most outspoken critics, said on Tuesday that Chrysler could be made more viable through a merger.

Under terms of the government loans, Chrysler is under pressure to seek major concessions from its union and creditors by the end of March.

Chrysler's LaSorda disclosed on Wednesday that the company had been in talks last year with Magna and Russian carmaker GAZ about making vehicles in Russia based on the platform for the Dodge Caliber and Jeep Patriot.

LaSorda said those talks could be revived.

Magna was one of the bidders for Chrysler when it was sold by former owner Daimler AG in 2007.

Expectations that Magna could be interested in a new deal with Chrysler were boosted when Magna confirmed Tuesday it had hired former Chrysler chief operating officer Wolfgang Bernhard as an adviser.

Bernhard was seen as a front-runner to take over as CEO of Chrysler before Cerberus gave the job to Bob Nardelli. LaSorda said he had been in contact with Bernhard in his new role.

But LaSorda said there was no consideration of Magna running Chrysler's U.S. plants. Sources had told Reuters that Magna had been in discussions with Chrysler to run its Belvidere, Illinois plant.

"That's just not what we would do," he said.

Separately, LaSorda said Chrysler was looking for buyers for tooling for models being phased out and would consider a licensing deal with another automaker for a current vehicle.

People familiar with the discussions told Reuters on Tuesday that Chrysler was looking to sell the tooling for its PT Cruiser model and was in talks with Chinese automakers.

"If someone came to us and said would we consider licensing an existing model, that would be difficult, but it would be something we would consider," LaSorda said.

Renault, which owns a controlling stake in Nissan, had contact with Chrysler about a sale of all or parts of the U.S. automaker last year.

A proposal to merge General Motors with Chrysler was shelved in November when both companies scrambled to shore up cash and secure $17.4 billion in emergency funding.

Before turning to GM, Cerberus had wide-ranging talks in a bid to find potential buyers for all or part Chrysler but has never acknowledged those discussions.

"Chrysler itself does not make these decisions. I don't think Cerberus is in love in being in the car business. These kinds of merger discussions are extraordinarily confidential," said David Cole, chairman for the Center for Automotive Research.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta, Soyoung Kim, Ran Kim and Kevin Krolicki in Detroit, Yang Fan in Shanghai and Pascale Denis in Paris; editing by Peter Bohan and Tim Dobbyn)