GM said to be weighing cuts
General Motors Corp. may get rid of some brands, speed the introduction of small cars from other markets and make further white-collar job cuts as it tries to deal with a shrinking U.S. auto market.
A person familiar with the company’s discussions said Monday that all the options were being considered as GM tries to cope with the dramatic shift in consumer buying habits from trucks to cars and crossover vehicles.
The person asked not to be identified because no decisions have been made.
GM shares dropped briefly Monday afternoon to $9.92, tying their lowest point since Sept. 13, 1954, according to the Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago. The price is adjusted for splits and other changes.
The stock rebounded and rose 12 cents to $10.24. It had traded as high as $43.20 in the last year.
GM announced last month it would close four truck and sport utility vehicle plants and boost production of several existing car models. Its sales are down 16.3% this year.
Company spokeswoman Renee Rashid-Merem would not comment on potential job or brand cuts, but said the company had made it clear that action would be taken if the U.S. auto market wors- ened.
“If conditions persist or deteriorate, then we’ll continue to take aggressive actions,” she said Monday.
GM’s stock price tumbled to its previous 53-year low of $9.96 on Wednesday after Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy wrote in a note to investors that a GM bankruptcy “is not impossible if the market continues to deteriorate and significant incremental capital is not raised.”
The next day, JPMorgan analyst Himanshu Patel called the bankruptcy fears overblown but predicted GM would burn through $18 billion in 2008 and 2009 as it struggled with depressed U.S. sales.
GM has $24 billion in cash and $4.6 billion in credit on hand, he said, so it doesn’t need to raise more money immediately. But he predicted the automaker would try to raise another an additional $10 billion in the third quarter of this year by mortgaging trademarks, international operations and other assets.
Critics have said GM still has too much fat in its middle management, despite cutting white-collar employment to 32,000 last year from 44,000 in 2000. They also say the engineering, manufacturing and marketing costs are too high for it to keep all eight of its brands.
Over the years, analysts have suggested cutting or selling the Buick, Saab or Saturn brands, perhaps jettisoning them like GM did with Oldsmobile in 2004. Chevrolet and Cadillac remain the company’s strongest sellers.
Buick sales are down 21% so far this year, while Saab is down 29% and Saturn sales are off nearly 19%. Saab, the Swedish automaker, sold only 12,068 vehicles during the first half of 2008. Saturn sales have declined nearly 19% for the year even though its model lineup has been completely revamped.
With consumers facing $4 per gallon gasoline, GM already has decided to study the sale of its Hummer brand.
