DETROIT — The carmaker General Motors began a new era for itself Friday, with its chief executive pronouncing the end of “business as usual” and promising to focus on its customers and vehicles more than ever before.þþ“We deeply appreciate the support we’ve received during this historic transformation and will work hard to repay the trust and the money that so many have invested in G.M,” the chief executive, Fritz Henderson, said hours after the company closed the sale of its good assets to a new, government-backed carmaker.þþ“The last 100 days has shown everyone, including ourselves, that a company not known for quick action can indeed move very fast,” Mr. Henderson said. “Starting today, we want to take that intensity, the decisiveness and the speed of these last several weeks, and transfer it from the battlefield triage of the bankruptcy process to the day-to-day operations of the new company.”þþG.M.’s goal, Mr. Henderson said, is to design, build and sell the best vehicles in the world, something that the company had forgotten. He listed the company’s priorities, in order, as its customers, its cars and its culture.þþWhile Friday marked the first day of the new G.M., many unanswered questions remain. One concerns which G.M. managers will keep their jobs. Mr. Henderson announced a series of initial restructuring moves that eliminated the jobs of several top executives, but did not say whether they would be leaving. Details will come later, Mr. Henderson said.þþHe also said that the government’s involvement at G.M. would change immediately from day-to-day supervision to a more hands-off attitude, but that the role of Treasury, as the company’s biggest shareholder, was far from over. Indeed, Mr. Henderson promised a focus on changing G.M.’s culture, a top priority of the government’s automotive adviser, Steven Rattner.þþG.M.’s new chairman, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., in his first public comments since joining the carmaker, said he agreed to join G.M. because he had “always admired this company.” Mr. Whitacre, the former chairman and chief executive of AT&T, said G.M. had the “fundamentals” to succeed, having shed the debt that was weighing it down.þþ“For 100 years, General Motors was among the world’s greatest companies; it deserves to be there again and it will be again,” Mr. Whitacre said. “Perhaps more than anything else, I agreed to take this job because I know most Americans want this company to succeed.”þþEarlier, G.M. and the government completed the legal paperwork needed to put the company’s most desirable assets, including brands like Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC, into the new company — now named the Vehicle Acquisition Company but soon to be renamed the General Motors Company. The federal government will hold nearly 61 percent of the new company, with the Canadian government, a health care trust for the United Automobile Workers union and bondholders owning the balance.þþ“It’s just beginning. It’s nowhere near over,” said Keith Crain, the publisher and editorial director of Automotive News, an industry trade publication. Speaking on WJR-AM in Detroit, Mr. Crain said, “They’re going to need hard work, a lot of smarts, and they’re going to need good luck.”þþMr. Henderson announced several new ways that G.M. planned to reach out to customers through the Internet. A Web site called “Tell Fritz” will let consumers offer suggestions directly to Mr. Henderson, and the company will experiment with selling vehicles through the online auction site, eBay.þþMr. Henderson said the automaker would need to conduct ÿfresh start accountingÿ in which new values were placed on G.M.’s assets. He joked that auditors would not have to assess G.M.’s risk factors, since the company had just been through bankruptcy. þþMore seriously, he added, ‘’This is our second chance — this is a precious second chance — and you don’t get third chances.”þþThe new company will be much smaller, with brands like Saturn, Hummer, Opel and Pontiac in the process of being sold or closed. It will also have a smaller sales network, with thousands of dealers having been cut during the reorganization.þþIts management ranks also will be smaller. Mr. Henderson said the company was eliminating 35 percent of its executive positions, including the job of Troy Clarke, who has served as G.M.’s North American president. Mr. Henderson will assume control over the company’s North American operations, and he was not specific about Mr. Clarke’s future.þþRobert A. Lutz, a G.M. vice chairman who planned to retire at the end of the year, will stay to oversee marketing and communications. Mr. Lutz, 77, is responsible for the improvements that G.M. has made in vehicle design recently, with notable examples such as the Chevrolet Malibu and the newly revived Chevrolet Camaro.þþWhen G.M. filed for Chapter 11 on June 1, a humbling moment for the once-dominant carmaker, President Obama promised that the reorganization would be quick and controlled. Indeed, throughout its court proceedings in Lower Manhattan, lawyers, G.M. executives and the administration argued that speed was vital. (The administration initially cautioned that the reorganization might take as long as 90 days.)þþThe only alternative to the sale plan, they said, was liquidation, a prospect that they argued would send shock waves throughout the economy and leave G.M.’s creditors with nothing.þþUnlike Chrysler, whose reorganization included a challenge by three Indiana state funds that rose to the Supreme Court, G.M. has not faced an opponent with enough clout to derail its sale. It faced objections from dissident retail bondholders, who held a fraction of G.M.’s $27 billion in bonds, as well as from accident victim litigants, asbestos claimholders and some retirees whose claims would be largely wiped out.þþBut none of the protests rose higher than Federal District Court, where bankruptcy court rulings are initially appealed. And in the decision approving G.M.’s sale, Judge Robert E. Gerber of Federal Bankruptcy Court said that his ruling relied in part on the precedents set by Chrysler’s bankruptcy case a month earlier.þþWith the closing of the sale, the hard part for G.M. is only beginning.þþSenior administration officials have promised that they will not micromanage the company, despite being the majority owner and having already picked new directors, including Mr. Whitacre. By the end of the year, the government will have poured $50 billion of taxpayer money into the automaker.þþThe administration hopes to take the new G.M. public again next year.þþBut until that point — and beyond — the new G.M. must grapple with swooning car sales. New auto purchases are down 37 percent this year, with the seasonally adjusted annual rate now standing at 9.91 million vehicles, still below what the American carmakers need to break even. Mr. Henderson, G.M.’s chief executive, testified in court that he did not expect his company to turn a profit this year.þþG.M. must also learn to exist as a much less dominant player. For the first six months, it held less than 20 percent of the market, far from the 50 percent it commanded decades ago. Rivals like Toyota and Hyundai, and even Ford, which has sought to restructure its finances outside of bankruptcy, have all gained market share.þþNick Bunkley reported from Detroit and Michael J. de la Merced from New York. Micheline Maynard contributed reporting from Detroit.þþ
Source: NY Times