It's a New Day for the New GM

Fritz Henderson speaks on the new GM, which has emerged from bankruptcy. Customer, cars and culture are the top priorities for the New GM. The car company is starting a Tell Fritz website to get input from customers:

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The New GM to Emerge July 10

Check out the GM blog and the GM reinvention site.

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The new General Motors is about to roll off the assembly line as a leaner, greener model, maybe even a profitable one, too.

Once the world's largest and most powerful automaker, the troubled company was expected to emerge from bankruptcy protection by early Friday cleansed of massive debt and burdensome contracts that would have sunk it without federal loans.

The new company, 61 percent owned by the U.S. government, will clear bankruptcy in record time to face a brutally competitive global automotive market in the middle of the worst sales slump in a quarter-century. Read the rest at NPR

The New GM: Rattner Gives an Update

New Poll: Americans Like Guantanamo

This is kind of depressing. 
After four and a half months, Americans have thrown in the towel, according to the latest polls here and here.
What an impatient and fickle nation.
In this video, Janet Napolitano talks about the closing of Gitmo, while the rolling ticker reflects that most people are in favor keeping Gitmo open and many are in favor of waterboarding. I don't understand how people think it's okay that for 7 years people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time were imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay without any rights.  

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Since Americans have already folded, Republicans see an opening. Chuck Todd says Obama's presidency rests on GM. He assumes that most Americans are ignorant and don't know much about AIG and banking (he may be right), but they do know GM, so that's what they're watching. 

Government's GM IPO Exit Strategy

Someone was asking for an exit strategy today. Here it is distilled:

So at this point, New GM, will be a privately-held company, not traded publicly on the New York Stock Exchange (or any stock exchange for that matter). However, it is the intention of the Obama administration to get New GM to become a publicly traded company as soon as reasonably possible. In this case, auto task force czar Steve Rattner, a private equity expert himself, believes that sometime in 2010 (probably mid-late 2010), New GM will have an "I.P.O." -- or an initial public offering. And it's at that point where the taxpayer can have an easier time tracking just what the U.S. government's shares are worth.

In fact, Rattner said it's very possible the first round of shares that the government sells will be at I.P.O. time, perhaps as much as 10% of the government's holdings. One thing Rattner and others on the task force assured reporters is that you wouldn't see the government sell its 60% stake in one fell swoop. It would be a gradual sell-off, starting at I.P.O. time and gradually getting out, which is why Rattner believes it's probably a 2-5 year process, AT BEST, for the government's investment. First Read

Obama's News Conference on GM Video

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Fritz Henderson on the New GM Video

Critics on the left and right aren't giving GM much longer to live, despite the Obama administration's efforts. Economist Robert Reich says the Obama administration is allowing GM to live for only the short term. See the new GM site here. 
Ralph Nader is complaining too. Everyone's got their agendas and I'm not even going to pretend that I know what will happen to GM but I'm hoping that Fritz Henderson is the kind of guy who likes to prove people wrong:

Henderson's CNBC interview:

Ralph Nader is mad:

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Henderson's interview with Bloomberg:

Xerox CEO Says GM Bankruptcy Only Path

GM is expected to file for bankruptcy on Monday.
On Meet the Press, Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox, says GM has no other path but bankruptcy.
That's because the auto industry destroyed itself. It's interesting that people are playing it as if Obama destroyed the auto industry. These weren't companies just teetering on bankruptcy. They were companies teetering on oblivion. They ran an entire U.S. industry into the ground with bad management that wasn't able to work effectively with organized labor. The Obama administration is working on saving an industry, not a couple of companies.

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GM to File for Bankruptcy June 1

A proposal by General Motors to let bondholders receive up to a 25 percent stake if they do not oppose its bankruptcy reorganization — a bigger share then G.M. offered the autoworkers union — has received the support of a group representing many of the company’s largest debtholders.

In a regulatory filing, G.M. also set Saturday afternoon as the deadline for other bondholders to support the plan. The company is expected to seek bankruptcy protection by Monday, the deadline set by the Obama administration.

“Unless a sufficient number of bondholders sign statements backing the plan, the amount of stock and warrants for bondholders would be “substantially reduced or eliminated,” G.M. said in the regulatory filing. A person briefed on the matter said G.M. was seeking support from investors holding about 50 percent of G.M.’s $27 billion in bond debt. The plan already has the support of about 35 percent, according to people briefed on the matter. NYT

Kucinich, one of five democrats who are disturbed by the auto task force (read about that here):

GM Bankruptcy Not So Bad

This is the first somewhat upbeat story I've read on the future of GM and Chrysler, which most people seem to think are doomed no matter what. This story is from Fortune mag:

Up until a few months ago, bankruptcy for the corporate giant was nearly unthinkable. Former CEO Rick Wagoner all but refused to utter the word, so convinced was he that it would be fatal to customers' confidence in GM's brands.

Now, maybe, it doesn't look so bad. GM (GM, Fortune 500) is still selling cars and trucks, despite all the bad news associated with the company. And Chrysler is on the verge of exiting from its bankruptcy in record time. Already, we are told, the new guys from Fiat are getting ready to make over the company and blitz consumers with new and improved Italian-American products. Perhaps bankruptcy is a good thing.

But let's pause for a minute and think about what a post-bankruptcy GM will actually look like. You must read the rest

Gibbs Press Briefing May 19

GM May Be Stripped to Chevy and Cadillac

GM's new leader Fritz Henderson could kill six brands, whack dealers, and cut thousands of more employees. GM is replacing 6 board members.

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Fritz Henderson is now calling the shots.

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Good GM Good Chrysler

Obama's auto task force hired a bankruptcy attorney about 2 weeks ago, but bankruptcy doesn't mean dead. Ford must be feeling relatively good these days:

WSJ: The Obama's administration's leading plan to fix General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC would use bankruptcy filings to purge the ailing companies of their biggest problems, including bondholder debt and retiree health-care costs, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move would in essence split both companies into their "good" and "bad" components. The government would like to see the "good" GM to be a standalone company, according to an administration official. The "good" Chrysler would be sold to Fiat SpA, assuming that deal is completed, this person said.

GM and Chrysler have had bankruptcy attorneys devising plans for such a move in recent months.

President Barack Obama's task force has told both companies that the administration prefers this route as a way to reorganize the two auto makers, rather than the prolonged out-of-court process that has thus far frustrated administration officials.

GM looks increasingly like it will be forced into filing for bankruptcy protection, sometime in mid-to-late May, in a plan where the automaker breaks into two companies, the surviving entity a "new GM" that maintains key brands such as Chevy and Cadillac and some international units, say several people familiar with the situation.