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GM Chief On Saab: Pay Up, Sucka


GM Chief On Saab: Pay Up, Sucka

We’re liking GM Chairman Ed Whitacre more and more. He’s been rip-roaring through the management ranks at the General, replacing the old guard with new people who want to light a fire under the company and he answers questions in plain English. Recently he was asked about what the company is doing to sell Saab. His answer was great.

According to a story on Edmunds.com, Whitacre told reporters that the only real requirement to buy Saab was for someone to, “Just show up with the money and you can have it. Nobody’s come with the money. We’re in the wind-down mode.”

We can hear the blathering corporate speak that would have resulted from that question by past leaders, but Whitacre doesn’t operate that way. He speaks plain English and it is refreshing. We were not surprised to hear that the “wind down” process is moving ahead and the end of the line is expected to be on January 31, 2010.

We also were not surprised to learn that the Spyker proposals were probably worth less than the paper they were written on. We think back to the recent announcements by Spyker that they were coming back at GM with another offer, after they rejected the first, that they claims addressed all of GM’s concerns with selling to the small Dutch company. Apparently, their major concern, the money, was not part of the program with the second offer.

Whitacre goes on to say that the sale of Hummer to a Chinese company is progressing, and then he basically question what the hell both he and GM were doing at the North American International Auto Show: “My role? I’m supposed to walk around and smile.” Like we said, this guy may be just what the doctor ordered to wind GM back up again.

LINK: Edmunds.com report on Saab sale


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