GM CFO on the Way Out
What a funny coincidence. On the very same day that a government oversight panel rips GM a new one for disappearing billions of taxpayer bucks, the Detroit News brings word that GM’s CFO, Ray Young, will be leaving the company. Young’s departure comes as GM is shaking up its finance department, the division which gave the company such fine leaders as Rick Wagoner and Fritz Henderson. The DetN identifies Young’s announcement that GM would not disclose all of its financial information as a publicly-funded private company as a major cause for his ouster. And if the DetN‘s reporting is to be believed, Young isn’t the only GM exec who should be worried.
When GM’s new board of directors was briefed in early August, one member asked Bloom how he viewed Henderson’s ability to lead a GM turnaround. Bloom responded, 60 percent yes and 40 percent no, as did Harry J. Wilson, a former top auto adviser who has since left the auto task force.
So, while the search for Young’s replacement is already under way, GM’s CEO is living on a razor’s edge with his federal taskmasters. GM’s board is currently bogged down in Opel negotiations, but once that issue is settled, more shakeups seem likely to follow.
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@ rnc..Well said. As a senior hourly employee,now retired,I started my "what if plan" five years ago. I hope and pray that somehow GM and my pension will survive. That being said,I treat every pension check as if it was my last one. In conversation's with my former coworkers "denial" is alive and well. IMHO I can't see the taxpayers or the politicos having the stomach for anymore bailout cash. If GM can't,or won't put the right mangement team together,the end will come sooner than later.
"Who the heck would want to work at GM these days?" "In terms of a CEO/President type position a) someone who has already had a very successful career and would now like to live the Patton dream (achieving victory in the face of impossible odds) and be remembered as one of the greats and b) would very much like the payday that would come if they were successful, they’re already rich, probably miss the power and challenge." That's how Bob Nardelli was suckered into his Chrysler job.
"Imagine the cost of supporting all of the towns and counties that would have basically gone under if GM would have just collapsed (and most of thier suppliers) medicaid, food stamps, unemployment, bank failures, defaults on muni bonds (requiring an additional bailout of the mono-lines), foreclosures leading to loss of property taxes all leading to funding for education and other municiple services, etc. Taking everything into consideration, the $50 billion spent to keep GM on life support probably saved several hundreds of billions." Seriously? These are the same scare tactic lines I read back in February before GM even declared bancruptcy. Sorry, but I don't agree with the whole doomsday theory that goes along with the loss of an Automaker. Especially one that has clearly been going down the path of failure for decades now. Look at the UK, did it all of a sudden implode when it lost it's Auto manufacturing base? Nope. They had it coming, let the free market decide.
Seriously - It wasn't really about GM it just the reality of the "macro-economic" situation at the time.