Wagoner to step down from GM immediately
 

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ihDmcAFFtCO_yZDi-IPKEpLwZb8wD977U5TO1

DETROIT (AP) — A person with knowledge of General Motors' plans says Rick Wagoner will step down immediately as chairman and chief executive of the struggling Detroit automaker.

The person asked not to be identified because Wagoner's plans have not been formally announced.

The move comes on the eve of President Obama unveiling his plan to reinvigorate the U.S. auto industry. Obama and other administration officials have said they would demand deeper restructuring from General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC before they would get any more government loans.

Both companies are living on a total of $17.4 billion in federal aid.

To make it fair, I hope Gettelfinger of the UAW is shown the door as well.

I am not sure what the answer is with regards to GM. Seems kind of hopeless. I sure wouldn't want a GM product today, not that I ever wanted one.

Some might say that it is not soon enough for Mr. Wagoner to leave.
He may have talents, but being a CEO of GM is not one of them, whenever I've seen interviews on the tv, his whole approach is that he is right and everyone else isn't.

He's not leaving of his own volition. I doubt that he had little choice if they wanted billions more in public aid.

"Wagoner was asked by the administration to step aside, and agreed to leave."

http://freep.com/article/20090329/BUSINESS01/90329035/GM+chief+Wagoner+to+step+down+as+part+of+Obama+aut o+plan




All things considered, its probably best. A deeply ingrained, GM lifer is likely not the best choice to be an effective change agent down at the 'Tubes.









Tim

That's o.k. because he'll have his golden parachute to comfort his fall. Too bad the rest of the unemployed in this country don't have a golden parachute when they were booted out of their jobs.

This guy deserves no sympathy.

GM today is his doing.

Next time you rent a Chevy—in Maui or Cabo—ask yourself how you feel about the CEO of the company that produced your ride.

Actually, I would hang the guy from his gonads in some public place in Detroit as an example of the incredible arrogance and stupidity that has brought the country's premier industry to it's knees.

You are either part of the problem, or part of the solution, and Wagoner is part of the problem and needs to go!

I cannot understand why Boards of Directors create these amazing Bonuses and Golden Parachutes for execs that are failing.

I am all for rewarding success, but these boys clubs seem to reward the members of their little groups despite the cost and damage.

My theory is simple....

Workers at the bottom get 99% compensation, 1% performance.
Entry manager get 90/10
Middle Managers 80/20
and the ratio changes as the rank rises.

CEO's get 1% compensations (really it should be 0) and 100% PERFORMANCE salary.

Company does well, so does everyone, especially the CEO.
Company does poorly, CEO gets squat and will move along.

People like Waggoner and Gettlefinger are cancer. Slowly killing everything.

It's his arrogance that got GM into the situation in the first place, completely out of touch with reality. The Board of Directors should have done this long before the first trip to DC. They were pitching the "too big to fail concept" from the start and he was the ringleader.

It kinda works that way now. It's the overpaid athletes that don't work on nothing but performance bonuses.

For some reason I've never liked Mr. Wagoner and I don't know a thing about him. OTOH, I liked Ford Jr. and he got sacked.

Right after I typed my post I saw on the news that Wagoner is indeed gone. He resigned sometime today.

The interesting thing is that he might very well have had a contract but since it's only one person, they will buy him out and he'll be on his way all the richer. Just guessing.

Put down the roller. Try a brush instead.
 

I have. I rented a new Malibu on business last week and spent several days with it. It was a shockingly competent car, easily in the class of a competing Camry or Accord.






Tim

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090329/AUTO01/903290337/1148/rss25

Obama said GM Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson would take over the automaker on an interim basis and that no management changes at Chrysler were forthcoming.

I remember when Wagoner first came on as CEO, every car magazine hailed him as a true, dyed-in-the-wool "car guy" who was going to turn GM around.

I guess not.

To be fair, GM's problems are so institutionalized, with so many "immovable objects" (i.e., things that are set in stone and can't be changed, such as legacy costs), that no one person can save GM.

Interesting - some newscasts are suggesting Obama may have had a personal hand in Wagoner's ousting. That it was more than just an internal decision on GM's part.

Others are calling Wagoner a scapegoat.

Chrysler evidently has to hurry up and finalize a deal with Fiat, or they may also face Obama's ire.

Check out these quotes from an AP story about Wagoner's firing:

But Wagoner is now a high-profile casualty of government intervention, forced out as part of the Obama administration's sweeping last-ditch effort to save the century-old auto giant.

The management shake-up, according to several industry analysts, shows that the administration is serious about forcing GM to change more quickly and dramatically than it did during Wagoner's nearly nine-year tenure as CEO.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20090329/49d051d0_3421_1334520090330-1847018343

So is Obama calling the shots in Detroit, or am I simply misinterpreting what's written here? :eek:

Doesn't anybody worry about GM now being a government run Company? Nationalization? That's the news that bother me more than the CEO's firing, but that it was done by Obama...not a board of directors.

Or that it happened so secretly. I think the Wagoner decision was made this morning and with little warning.

Socialism?

Exactly.

Wagoner is not the issue. It's about the Obama administration overstepping and usurping power belonging to the board of directors.

More amazing is that people seem to accept this.

Listening to Bloomberg right now. Yep, the Euro-folk accept this.

But here's the thing: should we be surprised. After all, didn't the first of the bailouts earlier this year signal that American business on the scale of the Big Three are no longer immune to govt intervention?

Heck, let's go back farther to CAFE standards, as well as safety and smog regulations. Wasn't the govt then intervening in U.S. automakers' business?

If a company gets big enough and sick enough that its impending collapse forces the US govt to commit many tens of billions of public dollars, that company can no longer expect its board of directors to "call the shots". Why should they, after running the company into the ground?

We've been talking about GM's impending collapse here for at least a year. I think most of those threads recognized that Wagoner's head was at risk of rolling, and many posts fairly clamored for it. Why are you surprised that it has finally rolled? I'm surprised he kept his job this long.

this might be just the beginning -I hope. I worked for the guy and there are plenty worst just bellow him. If GM is to survive more execs will have to follow him.....

But that's been a major contributor to what has caused the problems a lot of companies are going through right now.

Too much emphasis was placed on performance, as measured by the stock price. Too many execs and companies made stupid mid and long-term decisions that placated the day-trader crowd that wanted unrealistic returns in the immediate and very short term.

It's easier said than done to measure the performance of a large company, at least when trying to quantify it for a benefits or compensation package.

+1

The stock value is NOT the measure of a company's performance, and should not be how executives are compensated!

George Will is right. The US government should not be running an auto company.

GM should declare bankrupcy and reorganize. Good-bye shareholder values and good bye board and top management.

It's inevitable now anyways

A GM bankruptcy filing, without financial support from the govt, will end in liquidation. The company will not be able to reorganize. That would effectively collapse the supplier base, which will take down Chrysler and Ford too.

If there is financial support from the govt, e.g. to enable GM to emerge from bankruptcy, the govt must have some say in how GM is run. That is simply political reality, and after being embarassed by the likes of AIG, the govt is even less likely to lend many billions of dollars without holding a leash on the company.

That's the real-world situation. George Will and other pundits have the luxury of writing OpEd pieces without being responsible for actually accomplishing anything.

Wagoner may not have been the solution but he wasn't the problem either. As the mentioned there are brick walls in place that prevent the company from succeeding until restructuring.

GM needs to be allowed to fail and I suspect the top management is begging for it to happen sooner rather than later but they can't admit it publicly. GM is a very "powerful" company and once the handcuffs are removed we may all be impressed with the result(s).

Oh no, the sky is falling.:eek:

The political "reality" - is that you cannot run an outfit like GM out the White House. Rahm is going to decide whether Buick survives and Joe-B is going to pick next year's plant closings??:rolleyes:

I am not saying no financial support - I am saying bankruptcy - followed by a realistic plan to reorganize. The present bloated nature of the company, plus legacy costs and union contracts need to be swept away to keep it a viable automaker.

Time to oust the whole board - they have failed. Time to oust top management - they have failed. Time to destroy all shareholder value - they have been given more than the company is worth. Time to break all contracts and labor agreements.

Ever hear of British Leland??

I doubt that the auto czar will try to micro-manage a company the size of GM, to the extent of choosing plants to close or which nameplates and dealers to terminate.

Hard to see what upside the govt see from doing that, and unlikely a govt official would want to be so directly responsible for the resultant pain to workers/voters.

Wagoner had the power in his hands to wean the company from SUV and pick up profits and focus on the future. He didn't take that chance. Anyone can take the easy road, the one that says, "All is well, so it must end well."

Sorry, didn't. Now someone has to move the constipation out the door and feed in some new tactics. If they wanted to, they could pull the rug out from under Tesla. Any huge company can smother a little company whenever. Wake up the customers, they are apathetic.

And, GM can reinvent itself as the new Toyota. Come out of the blocks with a whole ***tload of small, cheap, well made, high millage commuters. If history repeats itself (likely), they can build the luxury into them as they become a fixture in most driveways.

Usually the best business model is to find one that works already and improve on it with the goal of taking market share from the model being bettered. Now, if I can see that and Wagoner can't, then goodbye to him and about 4000 other white collars.

Today!

Not to detract from American workers, managers or executives - that would take 60 years of hard work and continuous improvements.:(

I think taxpayer cash is looked upon as the better alternative..:rolleyes:

Well, Ford isn't far away on this. It didn't take them 60 years. Getting rid of Jaguar, and hopefully Volvo, and becoming once again the builder of the world's cars is what it's all about.

Remember this guy named Henry?

[QUOTE: George Will and other pundits have the luxury of writing OpEd pieces without being responsible for actually accomplishing anything.

I like what Will has to say from time to time but that is right on the money...


.

So he should have jettisoned the only profitable lines and focus on the lines that have historically shown little to no profit?

I'm going to have to disagree.

BTW, what line is selling and making money off small commuter cars? There is a reason the Toyotas and Hondas have gotten bigger and the only players in the commuter market are Korean slave labor jobbies.

Well, they aren't very profitable these days. I would substitute transitioned for jettisoned. Little or no profit sounds good these days. Do all companies have to work for the good of the stockholders while not working for the good of society? Look at the stock now.

And, if you see how the Toyotas, Nissans and Hondas have gotten bigger, that's going to be their Achilles heel. They are still foreign companies, I don't care how much they manufacture here. They had to come here to pare down the transportation costs, but they still ship parts here and take the profits home.

I'm not ignorant enough to tell you that every nut and bolt, plus the finished product can or will be made in Detroit, but I can tell you that while the Giant was sleeping, David came in and has all but delivered the final and lethal blow. Let's make this a real sci-fi story and pretend the Giant gets smaller, faster and harder to defeat.

Old School Wagoners who have been with the company for ages are just so much dead meat on the bone. Let's get to the bone.

I'll ask you, John...since you seem fully in support of Government now managing GM...

Can you name one Government run automobile company that has been successful?

It's not about Wagoner's head rolling...it's about who fired him...

At least it's just OpEd pieces.

The govt has the luxury of spending trillions of dollars and indebting an entire generation without being responsible for actually accomplishing anything.

Not immediately jettisoned, but you do have to properly product plan more than a few months out. Ignoring all product planning and only focusing on developing what will sell in the next month is not the way to run a massive car company.

Super point!