Wild Ass Rumor of the Day: GM To Leave Detroit?

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

General Motors is is “open to considering moving its headquarters from Detroit, selling off U.S. plants and even renegotiating parts of its restructuring plan with its major union,” CEO Fritz Henderson told Reuters today in a conference call. The possible relocation and renegotiations are part of a last-ditch effort to restructure GM outside of bankruptcy, a move that Henderson admits is likely to fail. “It’s more probable that we would need to accomplish our goals in a bankruptcy,” says Henderson. “There’s still a chance for it to be done outside a court proceeding.”

“As we look at the structure, look at the business, we’re looking at everything, particularly as we slim,” Henderson said. “At this point, I don’t have anything to report. We don’t have any such plans, but if we did it would be motivated by business rationale, which would be cost-efficiency and speed.” The UAW has already criticized GM’s plans to cut US production levels. GM’s current restructuring plan calls for 21,000 job cuts for GM’s US workforce.

On the dealer front, Henderson has said that GM’s plan to cut 2,700 sales outlets would be put into effect later this week. “We would try to work with our dealers for an orderly wind down,” said Henderson. GM is offering to buy back signage, tools and unsold inventory from its dropped dealers, but there are major questions surrounding GM’s ability to make these cuts outside of bankruptcy. In a guest column for Automotive News [sub], dealer law specialists Dan Myers and Loula Fuller advise dealers to “remember that just because GM targets you, doesn’t mean it can carry out the plan.”

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • AG AG on May 12, 2009

    Wall Street vs. Detroit kinda reminds me of PETA v. Michael Vick. Just like how people will soon remember they hate PETA more than Vick, Wall Street will soon remind us all who the real villains are. Don't believe the stress test hype. These sorry fools losses could be in the trillions.

  • Akear Akear on May 12, 2009

    What do we build in this country?

  • Vento97 Vento97 on May 12, 2009

    At least OCP can now buy the old factories (cheap) and start manufacturing the Robocop units...

  • Ohsnapback Ohsnapback on May 12, 2009

    Wall Street should be burned to the ground, never to be resurrected. Those greedy bastards sold their souls, and unfortunately, yours and your children to the devil, but you got poor and they became wealthy in the transfer. There was a simpler time when if someone like a company and its products, they invested money directly with the owners. And then, the rotting, stinking, greedy ugliness of Wall Street was invented, with its millions of rotting, stinking, greedy, soulless henchmen.

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