GM or Toyota; Who's Number One?
Toyota’s operating profits this year will exceed the entire market value of GM. This insight arrives via Ian Rowley in his Eye on Asia blog for Business Week. According to Rowley, with GM reporting a $39b loss and Toyota earning $11.2b, GM’s market capitalization (market cap) is now smaller than Toyota’s single-year profits. (To determine the market cap of a company, multiply its share price by the total number of outstanding shares and you get the financial size of the corporation.) Toyota is projected to have operating profits of $20.2b this financial year. At the end of the trading day yesterday, GM’s market cap was $19.21b. Rowley says yesterday’s announcement by GM makes the “huge earnings gulf” between the two companies obvious. While GM sells more cars annually in the US than Toyota does [for now], their “fortunes” are reversed when it comes to finances. The race for the title of world's largest automaker remains up for grabs, but any victory by GM at this point would have to be seen as Phyrric.
Glenn is a baby-boomer, born in 1954. Along with his wife, he makes his home in Connecticut. Employed in the public sector as an Information Tedchnology Specialist, Glenn has long been a car fan. Past rides have included heavy iron such as a 1967 GTO, to a V8 T-Bird. In between those high-horsepower cars, he's owned a pair of BMW 320i's. Now, with a daily commute of 40 miles, his concession to MPG dictates the ownership of a 2006 Honda Civic coupe which, while fun to drive, is a modest car for a pistonhead. As an avid reader, Glenn enjoys TTAC, along with many other auto-realated sites, and the occasional good book. As an avid electronic junkie, Glenn holds an Advanced Class amateur ("ham") radio license, and is into many things electronic. From a satellite radio and portable GPS unit in the cars, to a modest home theater system and radio-intercom in his home, if it's run by the movement of electrons, he's interested. :-)
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Yea... I didn't see that before. I guess if they had "Japanese" eyes the Chinese wouldn't buy them. /sarcasm
GM will, IMHO, become a health insurance company. Do some research on Kaiser Permanente health insurance company. You will find that it is what's left of the old Kaiser Steel Co. of the early to mid 20th Century. It's personnel benefits department morphed to become the company! GM, given the hordes of retirees and other hangers-on who get a pension check from the General, is now just a HMO with a car plant out back (one that burns money almost as fast as the Pentagon). The sooner the General acknowledges the blatantly obvious, the sooner there will be a (slim) chance of survival. Just not as a car company.
Way to use the Wikipedia Glenn
Readers who'll be in NYC on WED., NOV. 14 may be interested in hearing TOYOTA chairman Fujio Cho speak at a noontime event at Japan Society. James McDonald, CEO of Rockefeller & Co., will preside. The luncheon is sold out but seats still available for the lecture 1-2 pm; www.japansociety.org (Japan Society is on E. 47th St. between 1st & 2nd Aves.)