Turnover in GM Management Suggests Rough Sledding Ahead

If they're in the black, why all the pink slips?

t’s not that people are leaving GM. It’s how they leave. Two weeks ago, Opel chief Karl-Friedrich Stracke presented numbers to Dan Akerson. Akerson fires him. Opel gets two interim chiefs in a week. Last Thursday, Opel’s new design chief Dave Lyon doesn’t even start his job. Today, media in the U.S. and Germany report that Lyon had been escorted from the building and to a waiting car by GM’s head of personnel. A day later, global marketing chief Joel Ewanick suddenly leaves....

It all looks like Dan Akerson is panicking. The GM stock is at an all-time low. GM is losing market share. When July numbers will be announced this week, GM won’t look so good, industry oracles say. Mass executions always are great to deflect criticism – for a while.

GM's sales, meanwhile, increasingly rely on subprime lending -- lending, that is, to credit risks, who use that loan to buy GM stock. This is a problem, because these loans are issued by GM Financial, which is owned by GM, and, therefore, the American public.

Thanks to @johnekdahl.

posted by Ace at 10:40 AM

| Access Comments