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Originally Posted by Lockjaw
If GM whitled down to just GM and Caddilac they could officially just go ahead and sell them to Toyota because that would be done.
I mean you would be killing two of it's most well known nameplates in Chevy and Pontiac. Saturn is growing and is a small bright spot in the GM lineup.
I mean think about it would you want a GM Camaro,GM Impala, or GM Silverado? No. That would mean scrapping all the classic name plates and starting a new and that kind of would suck when you have a company that's nearly 100 years old.
And Ford couldn't limit itself to Ford and Lincoln. It's got it's hands in Mazda pretty heavy and they have a really good spot in that they let people who only buy Japanese cars without thinking give them tons of cash. Ditto for Volvo. They dump those brands and just sell everything as Fords and people will just look at the badge on the car and be like "Oh...that's an American car. I won't buy that." It's just how it goes. These companies obtain these nameplates because they know just the name is good for a few sales because a lot of consumers have certain biases and if you play to them you'll still get at least some of their money in the end.
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Look for GM to go Chapter 11 in the next 5 to 10 years.
Their costs are out of control, their market share is less and less every year, their outlook is bleak, they have redundancy everywhere with all the divsions. GM has a very serious problem on its hands with health care costs for its workers (currently $1,600 USD of the price of EVERY car that was made in the USA is to cover just the HEALTH CARE costs, and that number is spiraling out of control.) Last year, GM paid more for health care premiums for its US workers than it did to buy all of the steel it used to build the cars. Add to that an underfunded pension plan, and decreeasing sales, GM as you know it now is through.
They still run themselves like they have 45% of the market instead of 20% and declining.
The fact of the matter is that they can't continue to operate like they are forever. That market share is gone and they will never ever get it back. There are too many players in the game. There are too many players that make a better product than GM. Even if GM were to somehow (it will never happen) design and build the best cars in the world again, they would never ever have 45% of the market again. Even with 0% financing permanently available and incentives galore, their sales are sinking and their outlook is bleak. GM shares are at a 12 year low. Even Harly Davidson has a higher market capitalization than GM.
They need to reinvent themselves.
GM will go chapter 11. They will emerge with 2 divisions, maybe 3, and that's it. You can call them what you want. Hummer can easily fold into GMC. Saturn has never made a dime, so it will be either sold off, or blend their technology into 2 cars in the main line. Pontiac, same thing, take 1 car (Grand Prix) into the main line, Buick, same thing, one car (probably the lesabre into the main line.) Then you have Cadilac which is trying to compete with BMW, Lexus, Infiniti, Audi, etc.
GM will screw all of its creditors, close half of their factories, maybe more, they will scrap everything with the UAW, their pensioners will get a fraction, like 1/16'th of what they are getting now, shareholders will be left with nothing.
They will issue new shares and re-emerge with 2 or 3 divisions.
No, there will not be a government bail out either. In order to get a bail out, you have to have a business plan to sustain your operation. Merely throwing them a lump of cash would only be a temporary fix.
Think it can't happen.
Think again.
Rover MG in Britain just shut its doors last week throwing 6,000 people out of work.
Big deal you say?
Well at one time Rover MG was called British Leyland and they had over 250.000 employees world wide and were the third biggest auto manufacturer in the world.
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/art...573902,00.html
Now they are gone.