Word: gm
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...list presented to GM by the President's auto task force is stark and steep: shrink labor costs, including retiree health-care expenses; slash debt; kill or sell low-performing brands; and reduce the number of models for sale and the number of dealers selling them. Should GM, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the company's bondholders fail to figure out how to execute those tasks by June 1, the government will usher GM into bankruptcy, which could lead to its breakup into "good" and "bad" subsidiaries. The bad would be sold for parts...
...that sense, GM is getting off easy: Obama's task force gave Chrysler just 30 days to seal its proposed partnership with Italy's Fiat Group - or else join the likes of American Motors, Packard and Studebaker in the auto graveyard. If Chrysler gets the deal done, the government will lend it $6 billion to sustain its operations. But Chrysler's owner, Cerberus Capital Management, will leave with zero of its $7.4 billion original investment. (See the 12 most important cars of all time...
...needs for fuel-efficient yet stylish cars - and that have flexible manufacturing plants to turn out the hot products on demand - are likely to find huge opportunities for growth once the economy recovers. That's partly why there's so much riding on the Administration's plans to revamp GM - and why it had better happen fast. If U.S. automakers don't take advantage of the coming car boom, the rest of the world will. See pictures of Detroit's decline...
...First Things First Before planning for the future, however, Detroit still has to get through the present. GM has been on life support since Dec. 19, when the outgoing Bush Administration threw it a short-term loan and told the company that it had until March 31 to come up with a plan for its long-term survival. It did - but its strategy was premised on projections that car sales would begin to pick up this year after last year's dismal industry performance, in which sales sank 18%, to 13.2 million units. But the pickup hasn't happened...
...Even worse, in the eyes of Obama's task force, is that GM was immodest in its assumptions. For instance, GM had forecast a market-share loss of 0.3% per year until 2014. The task force noted that GM has been losing market share at a rate of 0.7% per year for the past 30 years - and GM was planning to drop brands and nameplates. The task force had no reason to think that GM could gain share, and its sales rate proved that point. Industry-wide, March auto sales were down 40% on a seasonally adjusted basis. GM...