General Motors, a new automaker majority-owned by the US government, is eliminating layers of management to speed up decisions as it emerges from the remains of bankrupt General Motors Corp.
“The last 100 days have shown us that a company not known for quick action can move very fast, indeed,” CEO Fritz Henderson said in a blog entry after introducing the new GM.
It finished restructuring in 39 days, 3 fewer than Chrysler Group LLC and 3 weeks sooner than GM expected, he said.
The Detroit-based automaker will shrink to four domestic brands from eight, have about $11 billion in U.S. debt and be run by a smaller corps of executives, Henderson said yesterday. International operations, most of which are alliances, will be run out of Shanghai.
GM’s rebirth is a victory for President Obama’s administration and Steven Rattner, the Treasury’s chief auto adviser, because the company was formed faster than the government predicted. GM was forced into Chapter 11 on June 1.
“Starting today, we take the intensity, the decisiveness and the speed of these last several weeks and transfer them from the battlefield triage of the bankruptcy process to the day-to-day operation of the new company,” Henderson said on the blog, part of a campaign to communicate regularly with consumers.
US taxpayers own 60.8 percent of GM through federal aid.