GM dérape vers la faillite

[cjb]

Well then, I guess today is the day to buy up those GM stocks at 50 cents a share. You know that within a year they'll be worth 5 $

 

Je ne pense pas Habsfan, les actions actuelles risquent d'être éffacées et remplacées par de nouvelles actions.

Le futur GM ne ressemblera en rien au GM actuel. Beaucoup plus petit et espérons le, plus efficace...

 

Ce ne sera plus une source de fierté et d'emplois comme avant. Ça va devenir comme Best Buy, un endroit où faire 12$ de l'heure maximum le temps de se redresser ou finir ses études.

[ErickMontreal]

Magna peut reprendre Opel

Devoir Le

Édition du samedi 30 et du dimanche 31 mai 2009

 

Berlin -- Le gouvernement allemand est parvenu à un accord pour la reprise du constructeur Opel, filiale de General Motors, par l'équipementier canadien Magna, adossé à des capitaux russes, ont indiqué ce matin à l'AFP des sources gouvernementales. «lI y a un accord, Magna monte au capital», ont-elles expliqué.

 

Si GM est formellement le seul à choisir le repreneur pour ses activités européennes - hors la marque suédoise Saab -, l'avis du gouvernement allemand est décisif. Le plan de reprise repose en grande partie sur les milliards d'euros de garanties que Berlin est prêt à mettre à disposition d'Opel.

 

L'offre de Magna est soutenue financièrement par la banque semi-publique russe Sberbank et par un partenariat industriel avec le constructeur russe GAZ. Le constructeur italien Fiat et la holding RHJ International avaient aussi déposé une offre sur Opel.

 

25 000 emplois en Allemagne

 

Le gouvernement allemand, en pleine année d'élections législatives, fait tout pour protéger Opel -- qui emploie 25 000 personnes en Allemagne -- de la faillite quasi programmée de GM aux États-Unis. Le but est d'abord de faire du constructeur une entité légalement indépendante du numéro un américain afin qu'aucune aide gouvernementale allemande ne bénéficie à GM USA, et ensuite d'épauler l'entreprise pendant qu'elle se cherche un nouveau partenaire permanent.

 

Magna, basé en Ontario, dirigeait la proposition d'un consortium intéressé dans une prise majoritaire d'Opel qui comprend également la banque russe Sberbank.

 

Plus tôt dans la journée, Magna et GM étaient parvenus à un accord qu'ils avaient d'abord soumis aux experts de Berlin. Également intéressé par Opel, l'italien Fiat avait annoncé hier matin qu'il ne participerait pas aux pourparlers prévus dans la journée. Le chef de la direction de l'entreprise, Sergio Marchionne, a jugé «déraisonnable» que le gouvernement allemand attende de la firme italienne qu'elle avance des fonds d'urgence.

 

Les pays européens concernés par le sauvetage des usines General Motors en Europe sont quant à eux sortis rassurés d'une réunion avec l'Allemagne, qui négociait en solo avec les Américains, en notant qu'une période transitoire permettra d'affiner le plan du futur repreneur. GM compte pas moins de 55 000 employés en Europe.

[Urbain]

Magna peut reprendre Opel

Devoir Le

Édition du samedi 30 et du dimanche 31 mai 2009

 

Berlin -- Le gouvernement allemand est parvenu à un accord pour la reprise du constructeur Opel, filiale de General Motors, par l'équipementier canadien Magna, adossé à des capitaux russes, ont indiqué ce matin à l'AFP des sources gouvernementales. «lI y a un accord, Magna monte au capital», ont-elles expliqué.

 

Si GM est formellement le seul à choisir le repreneur pour ses activités européennes - hors la marque suédoise Saab -, l'avis du gouvernement allemand est décisif. Le plan de reprise repose en grande partie sur les milliards d'euros de garanties que Berlin est prêt à mettre à disposition d'Opel.

 

L'offre de Magna est soutenue financièrement par la banque semi-publique russe Sberbank et par un partenariat industriel avec le constructeur russe GAZ. Le constructeur italien Fiat et la holding RHJ International avaient aussi déposé une offre sur Opel.

 

25 000 emplois en Allemagne

 

Le gouvernement allemand, en pleine année d'élections législatives, fait tout pour protéger Opel -- qui emploie 25 000 personnes en Allemagne -- de la faillite quasi programmée de GM aux États-Unis. Le but est d'abord de faire du constructeur une entité légalement indépendante du numéro un américain afin qu'aucune aide gouvernementale allemande ne bénéficie à GM USA, et ensuite d'épauler l'entreprise pendant qu'elle se cherche un nouveau partenaire permanent.

 

Magna, basé en Ontario, dirigeait la proposition d'un consortium intéressé dans une prise majoritaire d'Opel qui comprend également la banque russe Sberbank.

 

Plus tôt dans la journée, Magna et GM étaient parvenus à un accord qu'ils avaient d'abord soumis aux experts de Berlin. Également intéressé par Opel, l'italien Fiat avait annoncé hier matin qu'il ne participerait pas aux pourparlers prévus dans la journée. Le chef de la direction de l'entreprise, Sergio Marchionne, a jugé «déraisonnable» que le gouvernement allemand attende de la firme italienne qu'elle avance des fonds d'urgence.

 

Les pays européens concernés par le sauvetage des usines General Motors en Europe sont quant à eux sortis rassurés d'une réunion avec l'Allemagne, qui négociait en solo avec les Américains, en notant qu'une période transitoire permettra d'affiner le plan du futur repreneur. GM compte pas moins de 55 000 employés en Europe.

 

Vraiement triste cette histoire la que GM traverse en ce moment!

 

Mais tout celà est le premier son du glas que l'industrie de l'automobile! L'ére de l'automobile tire à sa fin et ce n'est que le commencement de la fin pour l'industrie de l'automobile et je crois que le président des États-Unis Obama l'a bien compris! L'automobile vas continuer d'exister bien sûr mais seulement pour une classe plus fortuné dans un futur pas si lointain.

[etienne]

The New York Times : June 2, 2009

Obama Sees ‘Painful’ Birth of New G.M.

By DAVID E. SANGER, JEFF ZELENY and BILL VLASIC

 

This article was reported by David E. Sanger, Jeff Zeleny and Bill Vlasic, and written by Mr. Sanger.

 

General Motors filed for bankruptcy on Monday morning, submitting its reorganization papers to a federal clerk in Lower Manhattan in a move that President Obama said marked “the end of an old General Motors and the beginning of a new General Motors.”

 

The bankruptcy of a once-proud auto giant that helped to define the nation’s car culture and played a part in creating the American middle class immediately rippled across the country, part of a process that the president said would take “a painful toll on many Americans” but lead ultimately to a strong company ready to compete in the 21st century.

 

But for the moment, auto workers braced for news about their jobs as G.M. said it would shutter plants in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Delaware, and plants in Tennessee and elsewhere in Michigan were put on standby. In financial markets, shares of foreign automakers and Ford surged ahead.

 

President Obama, speaking at the White House, emphasized that investing more billions of taxpayer dollars in General Motors was not something he wanted to do, but something he felt the government had to do to avert a calamity that would hurt millions of people.

 

“We are acting as reluctant shareholders, because that is the only way to help G.M. succeed,” Mr. Obama said, asserting that the government’s backing, coupled with the painful restructuring that the once mighty company is undergoing, “will give this iconic American company a chance to rise again.”

 

“I will not pretend the hard times are over,” Mr. Obama said, adding that the sacrifice needed to be made for the next generation.

 

In its bankruptcy petition, G.M. said it had $82.3 billion in assets and $172.8 billion in debts. Its largest creditors were the Wilmington Trust Company, representing a group of bondholders holding $22.8 billion in debts, and affiliates of the United Auto Workers union, representing nearly $20.6 billion in employee obligations.

 

In a court affidavit, Fritz Henderson, G.M.’s chief executive, said that bankruptcy and a Treasury-sponsored sale of General Motors’ assets to a so-called “New G.M.” were the automaker’s only option to move forward. Failing that, he said, the company faced liquidation.

 

“There is no other sale, or even other potential purchasers, present or on the horizon,” Mr. Henderson said.

 

In a bit of good news, G.M. said Monday that it planned to keep its international headquarters in downtown Detroit, rather than move to the suburbs. It said it responded to concerns by city officials fearful of losing the only one of the Detroit companies to be based in the Motor City.

 

The company was forced into the filing by President Obama, who is betting that by temporarily nationalizing the onetime icon of American capitalism, he can save at least a diminished automaker that is competitive.

 

With the filing, G.M. follows its crosstown rival Chrysler in bankruptcy. And G.M. hopes that it can move as swiftly. Chrysler, which sought court protection on April 30, could emerge in the next few days. A bankruptcy judge in New York gave approval on Sunday night for most of its assets to be acquired by Fiat, a decision that President Obama hailed on Monday morning.

 

“A new, stronger Chrysler” is emerging, the president said, and a new, stronger General Motors can emerge too. But first, he said, more difficult times lie ahead, for those thousands of workers and retirees affected by the car industry. The president urged those affected to see themselves as making “a sacrifice for the next generation.”

 

The bankruptcy of General Motors culminates a remarkable four months of confrontation between Washington and Detroit that is expected to result in a drastic downsizing of the company. It also places the government in uncharted territory as a business owner, as it takes a majority ownership stake in the company during its restructuring.

 

The company’s Saturn unit, which G.M. began in 1990 to compete with foreign-made cars, also filed for bankruptcy on Monday. G.M. has said it will phase out the Saturn brand by 2012.

 

G.M.’s Saab unit is already under bankruptcy protection in Sweden. The German government last week picked Magna International, a Canadian car-parts maker, to buy G.M.’s Opel unit, which is based in Germany.

 

Reflecting the government’s extraordinary intervention in industry, aides say, Mr. Obama reiterated his hope that G.M. can be brought back from the brink of insolvency, even if the company looks almost nothing like the titan of old.

 

The new G.M. will be leaner and better run and its cars more fuel-efficient, the president said, in yet another acknowledgement that the days of high-finned gas-guzzlers are gone forever.

 

The president was envisioning a much smaller, retooled G.M. can make money even if new car sales remain at a sluggish 10 million a year in the United States and even if G.M., once the giant of the industry, drops below its current 20 percent market share in this country.

 

But to get there, American taxpayers will invest an additional $30 billion in the company, atop $20 billion already spent just to keep it solvent as the company bled cash as quickly as Washington could inject it. Whether that investment will ever be recovered is still an open question, although the president said he was optimistic, and that Washington really had no choice.

 

The company will also have to shed 21,000 union workers and close 12 to 20 factories, steps that most analysts thought could never be pushed through by a Democratic president allied with organized labor.

 

Forty percent of the company’s 6,000 dealers will close, the workers’ union will be forced to finance half of its $20 billion health care fund with stock of uncertain value in the restructured G.M. and bondholders, including many retirees, will be forced to take stock worth 10 cents for every dollar they lent the company.

 

G.M. will also lose its spot on the Dow Jones industrial average, a crucial stock-market gauge of 30 blue-chip stocks. The car maker had been a member of the closely watched stock index since 1925.In press releases and public statements, General Motors tried to put the best face possible on its bankruptcy filing.

 

“We see the path to the future for G.M.,” Ray Young, G.M.’s chief financial officer, said at a briefing Monday morning. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get our balance sheet healthy. I feel very blessed to have this opportunity. It’s a huge responsibility.”

 

Judge Robert E. Gerber of United States Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan will oversee the bankruptcy. He was appointed in 2000, and oversaw the bankruptcy of the cable company, Adelphia.

 

Before that, he was a partner in the Manhattan firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, which he joined in 1971 after graduating for Columbia Law School. He specialized in securities and commercial litigation and, thereafter, bankruptcy litigation and counseling.

 

The company’s last steps toward bankruptcy took place over the weekend as a majority of G.M. bondholders agreed not to challenge the filing in court and to exchange their debt for stock.

 

To assist in the restructuring, the automaker is expected to hire the consulting firm Alix Partners, which has worked on several major bankruptcies, including those for Enron and Kmart. One of the firm’s partners, Al Koch, is expected to manage the liquidation of corporate assets that G.M. will shed during its Chapter 11 restructuring, people with knowledge of the bankruptcy strategy said.

 

Mr. Obama is taking several risks under the plan. None may be bigger than the decision that the United States government will take a 60 percent share of the stock in a new G.M., leaving taxpayers vulnerable if the overhaul is not successful. (Canada, for its part, is taking a 12 percent stake.)

 

But he asserted that any alternative to his plan would be worse, and that a liquidation of G.M. — the only other real option — would send the unemployment rate soaring over 10 percent and would radiate damage throughout the economy.

 

“We are acting as reluctant shareholders, because that is the only way to help G.M. succeed,” the president said, declaring as he has before that his administration has no interest in running a car company and will stay out of all but the most fundamental decision-making as the new G.M. takes shape.

 

Aware of the hardships the plan will impose on regions across the country that depend on auto production, the White House is dispatching a dozen Cabinet members and other officials across four states this week to reassure residents.

 

Although the president said that, once the government sets up new management and a board it will remove itself from G.M.’s day-to-day operations, his aides anticipate intense pressure as the company’s managers are called to testify in Congress and face questions like why they decided to build new cars in Mexico and South Korea, rather than in Michigan or the South.

 

“Congress and many Americans are going to say, if we own it, why can’t we make these decisions?” one of Mr. Obama’s top economic aides said, “and it’s going to be a challenge to answer that.”

 

The president, anticipating those issues, said on Monday that a bigger share of the fuel-efficient cars to roll off G.M.’s assembly lines will indeed be made in the United States.

 

Mr. Obama has laid out goals for all the Detroit automakers that will presumably affect their major strategic decisions. He has urged them, for example, to build smaller cars with significantly better fuel efficiency. But under the new principles, the White House would be discouraged from getting involved in G.M’s decisions about when and where to build such a car, or how long to keep producing it if it sells poorly.

 

Six months ago, even the suggestion of such deep intervention into G.M.’s operations would have raised huge objections. But by the time the denouement came, the company seemed almost relieved. Robert Lutz, G.M.’s vice chairman, said that “for the first time in our history, the American auto industry has the ear of the administration. Their number one goal is to make us successful.”

 

Michael J. de la Merced, Jack Healy, David Stout and Micheline Maynard contributed reporting.

[MTLskyline]

Terence Corcoran: What’s left for the left to decry?

 

Posted: June 01, 2009, 8:43 PM by NP Editor

 

 

The Obama administration’s auto industry strategy, effectively converting GM into Government Motors, has every chance of becoming the President’s worst economic policy move

 

By Terence Corcoran

 

Now begins the long dangerous global trade dance over the future location of automobile-production facilities.

 

With the bankruptcy and restructuring of General Motors, once the world’s greatest capitalist enterprise, come the beginning of a new era in global auto trade, one dominated by state corporatism, national protectionism and endless trade wrangles, if not trade wars.

 

Nobody wins such conflicts outside the players who game the system — the auto executives and political actors spinning the benefits of government control and intervention. For car buyers, the corporatist structure inevitably means declining options and rising prices. For taxpayers, growing subsidies mean added fiscal burdens.

 

The clear signal of the coming shift from free markets in automobiles — enjoyed by North American and European consumers in recent years — was telegraphed yesterday by Obama as he announced his government’s takeover of GM.

 

The new GM, he said, would emerge to “out-compete automakers around the world.” And when that happens, he said, “we can truly say that what is good for General Motors and all who work there is good for the United States of America.”

 

It’s a phrase that for years served as a rallying slogan for the left to condemn various U.S. administrations as lap-dogs of corporate power. Now that the President of the United States has personally endorsed the merger of government and corporate interests around the auto sector, what’s left for the left to decry?

 

Thanks to Mr. Obama, governments all over the world are converging around their auto sectors, preparing barriers and/or distributing trade-distorting subsidies.

 

Over the last 24 hours, and in recent days, the governments of at least five auto-producing nations — the United States, Canada, Russia, Germany and Britain — have issued warnings or taken steps aimed at protecting jobs and production at home. It’s only a matter of time before Japan and South Korea are dragged into the escalating skirmishes.

Even Canada, which boasts a free trade agreement with the United States, was forced to negotiate a commitment that 16% of the new GM production would take place in Canada. For that privilege, Ottawa and Ontario will pay US$9.5-billion and end up with a 12% piece of the company and a seat on the board.

 

“The choice was simple,” said Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “Do we do our share and keep our share of the industry, or do we let it be restructured in the United States?”

 

So much for free trade. We’re back with the auto-pact, managed trade, only worse, with Mr. Obama holding all the power levers and Ottawa and the province of Ontario providing corporate welfare to keep auto production in Canada.

 

Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, weighed in with his own demand.

If Canada’s Frank Stronach is going to use the money of a Russian bank — Sberbank, controlled by the government — to finance Magna’s Opel adventure, then “The Russian government has its strategy of developing the car industry and the deal we are discussing must be embedded with the strategy for automobile manufacturing.”

 

As for Mr. Stronach, his headline-grabbing talk about a new made-in-Canada car if Magna should end up as an owner of GM’s German subsidiary was quickly abandoned in the face of the growing protectionism.

 

It turns out GM has inserted a clause in the Opel deal. Speaking on CBC Television last night, Mr. Stronach said “The agreement we have with General Motors prevents us from selling, you know, down in the United States.”

 

So while Ottawa will protect GM production in Canada, GM will prevent Magna from adding production in Canada. Some bargain.

 

In Britain, where Opel is marketed as Vauxhall, the government wants job assurances from the Magna consortium before it commits to assisting the venture. Germany is putting $1.5-billion into the Opel bailout and providing $4.5-billion in loan guarantees.

 

This is just the beginning of a global auto trade imbroglio that will drag on for years, even decades. Protectionist trade pressure on Japan and South Korea will mount. And what about Ford, which survives without government aid but could now find itself at a competitive disadvantage? And how long before Fiat comes running to Washington for help in building cars in North America?

 

The Obama administration’s auto industry strategy, effectively converting GM into Government Motors, has every chance of becoming the President’s worst economic policy move, one that U.S. consumers and policy makers will spend years trying to unwind.

 

GM will effectively become a U.S. Crown Corporation. Americans don’t know much about such government-owned enterprises. But Canadians know too well how these dead weights on taxpayers and the economy can become impossible to unwind. Ottawa officials said yesterday that Canada’s 12% share of GM will be sold off in annual 5% tranches, beginning next year. Who are they kidding?

 

Also mythical is the pretense that Mr. Obama and Mr. Harper will play no role in running GM.

 

Ottawa’s alleged hands off approach was accompanied by a document that promised Ontario and the federal government will “exercise rigorous oversight.” It will limit executive privileges, aircraft and compensation, restrict expenses and retain access to information rights and the right to audit.

 

In Washington, the Obama administration has every intention of playing a major role shaping GM and the U.S. auto industry. With green policies and other schemes, it will determine the kind of cars GM makes and where they are made. It has, with union help, already forced GM to kill plans to export cars from China.

 

What the government says is good for General Motors will not be what’s good for General Motors, but what’s good for the government.

 

National Post

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/White/0Corcoran-eng.jpg

 

I sure hope that the US government doesn't neuter GM of its character and turn it into a boring Toyota-like enterprise.

[ErickMontreal]

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/White/0Corcoran-eng.jpg

 

I sure hope that the US government doesn't neuter GM of its character and turn it into a boring Toyota-like enterprise.

 

Maybe Toyota is boring to you but the last time I checked, Toyota was operational...

[MTLskyline]

^GM is operational? They are still selling and making vehicles and will continue to do so?

[cjb]

^GM is operational? They are still selling and making vehicles and will continue to do so?

 

no. GM bankrupted in december 2008. it is still in bussiness artificially because the government gave them billions.

 

Toyota is still in bussiness and no one gave them money.

[peluche]

no. GM bankrupted in december 2008. it is still in bussiness artificially because the government gave them billions.

 

Toyota is still in bussiness and no one gave them money.

 

And I believe nobody gave Ford any money either.

[OursNoir]

And I believe nobody gave Ford any money either.

 

Exact, Ford was offered some government money but politely declined it. They are on the way to be profitable again, with some good new models on the way.

 

And they will sell twice as much F-series now that GM and Chrysler are "out" of the market!