R.i.p gm 1908-2011 rest in pieces

[HSVKILLA]

http://detroitnews.com/article/20111...-09-bankruptcy

And Ford keeps on truckin.

[csv8]

With the F Trucks!!

[jpd80]

Well, I see a company that screwed up big time but got of scot free thanks to the efforts of the
US government and UAW acting as debtor in Possession financing for GM when no one else would.

Now the New GM is all cashed up with $45 billion in the bank, they haven't learned a thing.

[Lotte]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Well, I see a company that screwed up big time but got of scot free thanks to the efforts of the
US government and UAW acting as debtor in Possession financing for GM when no one else would.

Now the New GM is all cashed up with $45 billion in the bank, they haven't learned a thing....

This is exactly what I was thinking...

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by lotski

This is exactly what I was thinking...

As of November 30, GMNA's truck inventory stands at 205,000 or 105 selling days supply.
With a new Silverado ready to for sale, GM will have heavy incentives onto existing stock and
if recent history is anything to go by, $6,000 to $10,000 cash on the hood will be offered to buyers.

Meanwhile, F Truck is steaming along with much tighter inventory, higher average transaction prices and low incentives....

Well done Ford.

[Lotte]

Originally Posted by jpd80

As of November 30, GMNA's truck inventory stands at 205,000 or 105 selling days supply.
With a new Silverado ready to for sale, GM will have heavy incentives onto existing stock and
if recent history is anything to go by, $6,000 to $10,000 cash on the hood will be offered to buyers.

Meanwhile, F Truck is steaming along with much tighter inventory, higher average transaction prices and low incentives....

Well done Ford.

Doesn't surprise me.
Where I am manufactures and supplies holden and Ford Aus with parts, building double for Holden what they do Ford....

[FPV+fteT3]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Well, I see a company that screwed up big time but got of scot free thanks to the efforts of the
US government and UAW acting as debtor in Possession financing for GM when no one else would.

Now the New GM is all cashed up with $45 billion in the bank, they haven't learned a thing....

Whilst I agree with this it's not exactly true they have learned that they can send to the wall their suppliers and not pay their bills and walk away with a clean slate. The GM board should say lets do it every 10 years or so and remain profitable all the parts we buy in for our vehicles would be free eventually. Only in the good 'ol USA.

[mik]

Originally Posted by FPV+fteT3

Whilst I agree with this it's not exactly true they have learned that they can send to the wall their suppliers and not pay their bills and walk away with a clean slate. The GM board should say lets do it every 10 years or so and remain profitable all the parts we buy in for our vehicles would be free eventually. Only in the good 'ol USA.

yes it would be nice if the new GM would pay some remittance to the people and companys that got left out in the cold when it had it`s slate wiped clean.
doubtful it will happen though.

[aussie muscle]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Well, I see a company that screwed up big time but got of scot free thanks to the efforts of the
US government and UAW acting as debtor in Possession financing for GM when no one else would.

Now the New GM is all cashed up with $45 billion in the bank, they haven't learned a thing.

i heard that they were paying people with shares of old gm which are now worthless

[XBROO]

Looks like more commodores to the USA. LOL

[jpd80]

GM's business philosophy embodies that of old Detroit where manufacturers would "production"
themselves out of trouble. When ever a recession came along GM, Ford and Chrysler would keep factory
order books full ( because that's how managers and suppliers would make their money) and just clear that
excess stock with aggressive cash incentives, buyers seeing significant cash back would respond and
the process continued over and over.

In the mid 2000s, Ford realised that they were making lots of vehicles for fleets that made little or no money,
their customers were unimpressed because the huge discounts on new cars destroyed residual values on leased
and financed vehicles, forcing manufacturers to subveen leases by increasing residual and Ford to wear more losses.
Ford were bleeding money everywhere, the Performance Auto Group actually cost them close to $12 billion in losses
and with approx $13 billion in front product cycles coming, it was cheaper to cut losses than keep PAG going.

So Ford decided to sell, Avis, Aston Martin, Jaguar, land Rover and Volvo, stop producing all those low return or
loss making vehicles and in short, right size production to true market demand, the intent was to make less
and sell for higher prices.

GM and their fans laughed at Ford, thoughts the cuts and refinancing was unnecessary but Ford knew different.

Ford achieved everything GM did under Chapter 11 but kept control of the company and more importantly their reputation...


The situation is the same in Australia, you only have to look at the current local situations Ford and Holden
find them selves in, Holden is producing a lot of cars where Ford makes half but sells the lot, at good prices too...
Territory refresh increased average transaction prices by close to 10,000 as everyone wants the diesel and
hopefully, FGII updates will be enough to lure buyers into the show room and buy better appointed models.

Not sure what's happening with Holden. exports are pretty low but they're making lots of cars,
last month they made close to 6,000 Commodores and around 4,000 Cruze so if they're not exporting much,
where are all the cars sitting, are we seeing that with huge discounts underway at the moment?

In contrast, Ford is building to customer orders and dealer stock so not too much 2011 stock will be unsold.
If you look up an aerial shot of Broadmeadowes in January 2012, I have a feeling it will be very empty...

[jpd80]

IMO, additional vehicles Ford should be building in Australia are those that command higher retail prices:
- Kuga
- Mondeo
- T6 "Everest" call it: Bronco ( current SUV sales in Asia is quite low)

These vehicles all offer opportunity to increase sales for Ford Australia while allowing modest
regional exports and being global vehicles, the outlays are not too bad, being plugged into Ford
Asia supply network would allow all of these vehicles to be built here.

[Ford_The_Win]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Not sure what's happening with Holden. exports are pretty low but they're making lots of cars,
last month they made close to 6,000 Commodores and around 4,000 Cruze so if they're not exporting much,
where are all the cars sitting, are we seeing that with huge discounts underway at the moment?

Six thousand??!!! Lets assume they sell 3,000 domestically - export another 1,500 - that's still 1500 Commodores sitting around idle. Sounds like a great way to run your business.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Ford_The_Win

Six thousand??!!! Lets assume they sell 3,000 domestically - export another 1,500 - that's still 1500 Commodores sitting around idle. Sounds like a great way to run your business.

Commodore exports have crashed, nothing to Middle Middle east, South America dried up overnight due to taxes, G8 is finisghed in the US.
Caprice is 200/mth to middle East and around 150/ mth to USA. Zeta was green lighted on the premise of around 40,000 exports PA.
Clearly, that is not happening and they are squealing that Cruze production might soon exceed Commodore.....

I have a feeling that GMNA agreed to take 10,000 Caprice PPV but that's looking very shaky,
are we looking at another $200 million write down for Holden?

A lot of people think Holden is fine and dandy because they appear to be by selling lots of vehicles
but it's what they have to do to get those sales, the financial outlay and return after discounting.
A lot of those sales could be zero nett profit.

[2011G6E]

Meanwhile Ford USA keeps producing real-world extremely relevant cars like the F150 Raptor I saw on Top Gear USA last night, which they gushed over enthusiastically..."It's got a new massive 6.2ltr V8, and while it is soft and squishy and handles horribly on bitumen, it's made for what people don't do, go off road! Yay!"

They really don't get it, do they...Australian makers keep making better and better family cars that are more and more efficient, and the Yanks live in thier own little world and build shoddy cars that pretend it's the 1950's...

I found a Ford dealer in the USA owned by people wit the same name as me, and sent off to ask if they had one of those dealership stickers, the little ones that go on the back window, and they ended up sending me a big box full of pens, key rings, Ford branded chrome number plate surrounds (unfortunately in USA licence plate sizes), calenders, and brochures. I had emailed some photos of our G6E and some details about it, and the guy that wrote back gave it high praise, and said he'd been keeping an eye on Ford Australia on the net and reckoned that they could sell hundreds of our Falcons a month if they could get them.

Ford in the USA shouldn't feel so smug...the GM problem shows that no matter how big a car maker you are, no matter how long and proud your history, if you make a few bad decisions you'll go down the gurgler easily.

[Falc'man]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Premier Auto Group

Fixed.

[Kryton]

If anyone thinks GM's reputation has been affected.........

[imugli]

Just had a look at nearmaps for Ford plant and Holden Elizabeth plant. Last pic Nov. 24 and there are definitely more cars in the yards at Holden than at Ford. Seems most of the cars that people were talking about on the lawn at Ford have gone...

[Powdered Toast Man]

Holden did this back in the '80s or '90s didnt they? They went bankrupt, ceased to be GMH and became GMHA or something. So this is common GM company practice.

[imugli]

GM paid off $780m accrued losses and re-capitalised and restructured.

They've been through a number of official name changes over the years, but I don't think they've had much to do witht he financial structure.

The latest change, to GM Holden Ltd. took place in 2005.

This is as per the font of all knowledge (wikipedia) anyway...

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by imugli

GM paid off $780m accrued losses and re-capitalised and restructured

They've been through a number of official name changes over the years, but I don't think they've had much to do witht he financial structure.

The latest change, to GM Holden Ltd. took place in 2005.

This is as per the font of all knowledge (wikipedia) anyway...

Wiki are playing fast and loose with the truth....

That was holden in the mid 1980s...

[imugli]

Originally Posted by jpd80

No, they split the company in two, asset stripped Old GM and laid as many debts off there as they could,
while the Government and UAW acted as Debtor in possession financiers taking stock in the company.
New GM was given an Escrow fund of approx $ 20 Billion to pay down debts and a cash float
which GM did proclaiming to the world that they had paid off all their debts..........

Now, the US government looks like losing $15 billion on sale of its stock, so too the UAW..
but who cares, GM is now sitting on $45 billion cash in hand and less than $6 billion debt....

Doesn't seem right.......GM is like a drunk that been cleaned up and given a full wallet.


Wiki are playing fast and loose with the truth....

My post was in response to the question about Holden, not specifically about GM :-)

I know GM got off scott free :-)

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by imugli

My post was in response to the question about Holden, not specifically about GM :-)

I know GM got off scott free :-)

Yeah, sorry now I see...

But part of Holden survivability was approx $350 million from US congerss to implement Cruze in Australia
as GM told Congress that Holden's long term viability depended on it and as such Holden received US funding
through its corporate...

- Without that money, Holden wouldn't be doing Cruze, the borrowing costs would make it out of the question...

[imugli]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Yeah, sorry now I see...

But part of Holden survivability was approx $350 million from US congerss to implement Cruze in Australia
as GM told Congress that Holden's long term viability depended on it and as such Holden received US funding
through its corporate...

- Without that money, Holden wouldn't be doing Cruze, the borrowing costs would make it out of the question...

Again, I'm aware of that. :-) And we all know that without RuddBank's $200m line of credit (that was never drawn down on), Holden would have been sold to the Chinese...

The question specifically related to Holden being bailed out by GM in the 1980s and how it related to their name changes :-)

[imugli]

I think the thing that has hurt Holden the most is the dying in the **** of their exports.

As you mentioned jpd, they basically don't exist at the moment. So all of a sudden, a large (by Oz standards) $1billion budget for what was supposed to be a "world" car seems awfully expensive for a one market car.

If I remember correctly, the ute only got the green light based on export numbers, which haven't eventuated, and the same went for the wagon.

As you have mentioned, PPV isn't selling and they're not selling LWB cars here, either. The budget for LWB, if I remember correctly was based on exports to Middle East, which have dried up because of poor quality.

For years Ford have been lambasted for not having an export program for Falcon and the press have continually said that is the chink in it's armour - it's a 1 market car. FoA developed their cas based on that, so nothing gained nothing lost.

Holden and the VE on the other hand...

[jpd80]

That's why I smiled when the Wikileaks communique mentioned FoA passing up funding for potentially lucrative exports....

You've got to be kidding..............

[DanielXR8]

Originally Posted by HSVKILLA

http://detroitnews.com/article/20111...-09-bankruptcy

And Ford keeps on truckin.

I'm not sure where this idea came from that Ford were never in trouble. The Ford family put everything left on the line to keep Ford going as it was going under in the early to mid 2000 period. Two things saved Ford from the same fate as GM and Chrysler with a bailout or worse.


1. William Clay Jnr realised he was not the man to run Ford as it was going down and had the good sense to stand aside and get a new CEO.

2. They were blessed to get someone as competent as Mullay onboard with the company. Very few CEO's in the US could turn Ford around at that point, Ford lucked out and got one who could.

If either of those things hadn't come together, you would have been reading about Ford going into bankruptcy. It was a very, very close call thing.

Basically Ford did go to the wall, but they went earlier then the other two and only the inheritance and investments of the Ford extended family kept the company solvent long enough to turn it around as it burned though the cash. If any of the Ford family had not decided to put their inheritance on the line, it was game over for Ford. It got that close. Many questioned that it could be recovered at the time, but I think for as much as family pride as good business sense, they put everything on the line to keep the company going.

It was certainly no dream run for Ford. More by the grace of God goes us sort of situation. Mullay had to change a lot of cultural problems within Ford and the fact he wasn't a "car guy" brought up in that twisted executive culture that runs American cars companies certainly was a blessing. Look up some stories on Mullay and how he really shook up the Ford engineers and managers to see how different he was from what they use to do.

Their situation now is much better than the other two, but again, thats Mullay's doing. Get a bad CEO after him and all that good work could be undone in less than a decade. I think if the Ford family could clone the guy and keep in the top job for the next 100 years they happily would, but Mullay is 66, so realistically he will probably retire sometime before this decade is done.

In the car industry I wouldn't imagine there is much time for gloating. You are always only a decade away from insolvency if the wrong strategic decisions are made, no matter who you are.

Look at a local level how much of a mess was made to Ford Australia by poor choices in leadership and the decisions that lead from that. Falcon goes from number one to not making the top ten.

Dan

[jpd80]

Dan, Actually a lot of the credit should go to to Mark fields, Don Leclair and business heads at Ford.

Mark Fields crafted the original plan called, "The Way Forward" Which was launched before Alan mulally came on board.
The plan was then expanded to completely revamp North American operations along the lines of what was done in
Europe and South America, this also involved a daring move by Don Leaclair, the Chief Financial Officer to Mortgage everything.

About this time, Bill Ford Hired Alan Mulally who at a Meeting asked what he could do to make the plan work, Don asked if he would
meet with the banks to strengthen their case for lending, Mulally agreed and with his undertakings, the deal was clinched...

Alan Mulally brought proper corporate governance, the folks at Ford all got on board because they wanted a culture change,
they wanted their company to succeed and those that wanted to keep their own little empires were quickly shown the door.

Ford arguably achieved just as much financially and more culturally by doing its restructuring outside bankruptcy than GM did in CH 11.
IMO, GM were saved yes but their board and CEOs are unrepentant, continuing to suggest that only dumb luck separates them and Ford.
Anyone with a brain can see the difference a mile off.....


On the local scene, we are seeing impressive sales of diesel Territory, something Geoff Polites wanted here years ago.
Hopefully, the Falcon gets some love and sales come back a bit there but I have a feeling that Territory will now carry Falcon...

[Falc'man]

Originally Posted by DanielXR8

I'm not sure where this idea came from that Ford were never in trouble.
Dan

Who said they never were?

[Brazen]

this thread reminds me of fat chicks who pay out hot ones.... Just sayin'