Fritz Henderson steps down as GM CEO
12-01-09, 02:01 PM
#1
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Posts: n/a
Fritz Henderson steps down as GM CEO
]Source: Autoweek
Fritz Henderson has resigned as General Motors CEO, the automaker said on Tuesday. Henderson will be replaced by board chairman Ed Whitacre.
Henderson had been scheduled to make a speech in Los Angeles on Wednesday at the opening of the press preview days for the Los Angeles auto show. He had also been scheduled to be a speaker at the Automotive News World Congress in January.
http://www.autoweek.com/articl...19987
Fritz Henderson has resigned as General Motors CEO, the automaker said on Tuesday. Henderson will be replaced by board chairman Ed Whitacre.
Henderson had been scheduled to make a speech in Los Angeles on Wednesday at the opening of the press preview days for the Los Angeles auto show. He had also been scheduled to be a speaker at the Automotive News World Congress in January.
http://www.autoweek.com/articl...19987
12-01-09, 03:16 PM
#2
Lexus Fanatic
iTrader: (20)
guess he was only a stooge to get through the government take over.
i'm still stunned their sales are as high as they are right now. i don't get why anyone would buy a vehicle from a bankrupt company micromanaged by the government, with most of its 'workers' managed by the UAW.
i'm still stunned their sales are as high as they are right now. i don't get why anyone would buy a vehicle from a bankrupt company micromanaged by the government, with most of its 'workers' managed by the UAW.
12-01-09, 03:34 PM
#3
Lexus Fanatic
Offer Bob Lutz the job. Lutz is the one that, IMO, should have gotten the CEO slot in the first place....not just design director. Of course, he might not want to work for (or manage) a company that, today, is largely run from Washington.
Many of the newer GM products that are getting interest and respect today....(Solstice, Sky, Malibu, Aura, CTS, LaCrosse, SRX, Pontiac G8, C6 Corvette, to name a few)......are the products of either Lutz's vision or direct intervention.
However, at Lutz's age (he is over 70), and after all the good work he has done, he might just want to say the hell with it, retire, take it easy, and play golf.
Many of the newer GM products that are getting interest and respect today....(Solstice, Sky, Malibu, Aura, CTS, LaCrosse, SRX, Pontiac G8, C6 Corvette, to name a few)......are the products of either Lutz's vision or direct intervention.
However, at Lutz's age (he is over 70), and after all the good work he has done, he might just want to say the hell with it, retire, take it easy, and play golf.
Last edited by mmarshall; 12-01-09 at 03:43 PM.
12-01-09, 11:29 PM
#6
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Trending Topics
12-02-09, 04:37 AM
#9
Pole Position
12-02-09, 04:54 AM
#10
guess he was only a stooge to get through the government take over.
i'm still stunned their sales are as high as they are right now. i don't get why anyone would buy a vehicle from a bankrupt company micromanaged by the government, with most of its 'workers' managed by the UAW.
i'm still stunned their sales are as high as they are right now. i don't get why anyone would buy a vehicle from a bankrupt company micromanaged by the government, with most of its 'workers' managed by the UAW.
I wouldn't think of going to a GM or CHYSLER showroom! When will the head of the UAW step down, he's the biggest stooge !!
12-02-09, 05:49 AM
#11
Lexus Fanatic
And, yes, GM DOES need more Cadillacs.....that's why they are putting so much into new models. The huge Baby Boom generation isn't getting any younger. They're retiring in droves....and not all of them are going with German/Japanese makes.
12-02-09, 06:54 AM
#12
Guest
Posts: n/a
guess he was only a stooge to get through the government take over.
i'm still stunned their sales are as high as they are right now. i don't get why anyone would buy a vehicle from a bankrupt company micromanaged by the government, with most of its 'workers' managed by the UAW.
i'm still stunned their sales are as high as they are right now. i don't get why anyone would buy a vehicle from a bankrupt company micromanaged by the government, with most of its 'workers' managed by the UAW.
I wonder if this guy got anything?
12-02-09, 02:15 PM
#15
Moderator
Henderson exits as GM board seeks faster change
GM CEO resigns as board demands swifter turnaround, Henderson frustrated by second-guessing
By Tom Krisher and Ken Thomas, Associated Press Writers
On 10:11 am EST, Wednesday December 2, 2009
Buzz up! 3 Print
Companies:Boeing Co.Ford Motor Co.Motors Liquidation Company
DETROIT (AP) -- The leader of the new General Motors was done in by an old problem at the nation's largest car maker: Change wasn't happening fast enough.
AP - FILE - In this June 1, 2009 file photo, General Motors' CEO Fritz Henderson listens to a question ...
Related Quotes
Symbol Price Change
BA 53.78 +0.06
F 9.01 +0.13
MTLQQ.PK 0.6000 -0.0010
T 27.35 +0.17
{"s" : "ba,f,mtlqq.pk,t","k" : "c10,l10,p20,t10","o" : "","j" : ""** GM's board and CEO Fritz Henderson parted ways Tuesday, the board upset that the automaker's turnaround wasn't moving more swiftly and Henderson frustrated with second-guessing, two people close to the former CEO said.
Board Chairman Ed Whitacre Jr., the former head of AT&T Inc., will take over as CEO while a global search is conducted.
It was unclear whether Henderson or the board moved first in the surprise resignation, which came just hours before Henderson was to be the high-profile keynote speaker at the Los Angeles Auto Show. At a hastily called news conference at General Motors Co.'s downtown Detroit headquarters, Whitacre would not answer questions, but said the board and Henderson agreed that he should step down.
Whitacre thanked Henderson, 51, a lifelong GM employee, for his leadership and said the company is on the right path toward offering high-quality cars and trucks worldwide.
"We now need to accelerate our progress toward that goal," the 68-year-old Whitacre said in a brief appearance.
Both men were chosen for their jobs by the U.S. government, which owns more than 60 percent of the Detroit automaker in exchange for giving it billions in loans. But Henderson is a GM insider, while Whitacre had no car experience before taking the GM chairmanship.
"I don't think this has much to do with Fritz Henderson's performance, I think it's just the wrong time to be a GM lifer," said Logan Robinson, a former Chrysler attorney and professor of corporate governance at University of Detroit Mercy.
Industry analysts said GM likely would look for someone like Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally, who was hired in 2006 from aerospace giant Boeing Co. Mulally also had no automotive experience, but unlike Whitacre, was well-versed in manufacturing.
An Obama administration official said Tuesday in a statement that "this decision was made by the board of directors alone. The administration was not involved in the decision."
Henderson, who rose through GM's ranks over a 25-year career, took over in March after the government forced out former CEO Rick Wagoner. A few months later, GM entered bankruptcy protection and Henderson led the company through a painful government-led and court-supervised reorganization. The company emerged from court protection in just 40 days cleansed of massive debt and burdensome contracts that would have sunk it without roughly $52 billion in federal loans.
The people close to Henderson, who asked not to be identified because Henderson has not spoken, said he was frustrated from the beginning by the board and government push for faster change and other questions about his decisions.
Henderson, one of the people said, was confident that the company was making progress and thought he deserved more autonomy. In the past few months GM has stabilized its U.S. market share at around 20 percent and has shown some monthly sales increases in the U.S. and Asia.
Henderson also has been largely successful in his goal to scale down GM to just four core brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC. He won a tentative sale of Hummer to a Chinese construction machinery maker. But attempts to sell the company's other brands have hit obstacles.
Swedish luxury sports car maker Koenigsegg Group AB backed out of a deal to buy GM's Saab brand. GM said Tuesday it has some interested bidders but will wind down Saab if nothing materializes by the end of the year. Henderson's bid to sell Saturn to race car mogul Roger Penske fell through and the brand is now liquidating.
And on Tuesday, GM released November sales figures that were 2 percent below the same month last year, when sales hit a 26-year low. The decline came after Whitacre began pushing for increased sales and market share.
Whitacre and the board have become increasingly active in the company's decisions, at times challenging some of Henderson's moves. In November, the board voted to abandon plans to sell GM's European Opel unit, reversing an earlier option favored by Henderson to sell it to a group led by Canadian auto parts supplier Magna International Inc.
"I think there was a perception he was too much of an insider," said Ken Elias, partner with Maryann Keller and Associates, an auto industry consulting firm. "The bankruptcy was not something that occurred because of the recession last August, it was coming for decades. The reality is GM truly needs an outsider as a leader that has no attachment."
Whitacre, a Texan, is known as a blunt talker. He was also the highest-paid telecommunications executive in the country when the retired in 2007, and his compensation was starting to draw criticism from shareholders and activists.
He joined Southwestern Bell, part of the national AT&T monopoly, in 1963 as a facility engineer. When he took over as CEO in 1990, the company was the smallest of the seven "Baby Bells" spun off in the 1984 government-ordered breakup of the Bell system.
Under Whitacre, the company started snapping up other parts of the old AT&T. It acquired three of its larger Bell siblings, as well as the long-distance company that bore the AT&T name.
His crowning achievement was the 2006 acquisition of BellSouth, which gave AT&T full ownership of Cingular Wireless and a leading role in the growing cellular industry.
GM could face difficulty in recruiting Henderson's replacement. Like other struggling companies that have received federal bailout money, any compensation package would have to be approved by federal pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.
In an agreement reached in October with Feinberg, Henderson's pay was cut 25 percent to $950,000, about half of what he made in 2008. In addition, Henderson received shares worth $4.2 million, to be exercised when GM becomes a public company again, perhaps late next year.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Hender...85166.html?x=0
By Tom Krisher and Ken Thomas, Associated Press Writers
On 10:11 am EST, Wednesday December 2, 2009
Buzz up! 3 Print
Companies:Boeing Co.Ford Motor Co.Motors Liquidation Company
DETROIT (AP) -- The leader of the new General Motors was done in by an old problem at the nation's largest car maker: Change wasn't happening fast enough.
AP - FILE - In this June 1, 2009 file photo, General Motors' CEO Fritz Henderson listens to a question ...
Related Quotes
Symbol Price Change
BA 53.78 +0.06
F 9.01 +0.13
MTLQQ.PK 0.6000 -0.0010
T 27.35 +0.17
{"s" : "ba,f,mtlqq.pk,t","k" : "c10,l10,p20,t10","o" : "","j" : ""** GM's board and CEO Fritz Henderson parted ways Tuesday, the board upset that the automaker's turnaround wasn't moving more swiftly and Henderson frustrated with second-guessing, two people close to the former CEO said.
Board Chairman Ed Whitacre Jr., the former head of AT&T Inc., will take over as CEO while a global search is conducted.
It was unclear whether Henderson or the board moved first in the surprise resignation, which came just hours before Henderson was to be the high-profile keynote speaker at the Los Angeles Auto Show. At a hastily called news conference at General Motors Co.'s downtown Detroit headquarters, Whitacre would not answer questions, but said the board and Henderson agreed that he should step down.
Whitacre thanked Henderson, 51, a lifelong GM employee, for his leadership and said the company is on the right path toward offering high-quality cars and trucks worldwide.
"We now need to accelerate our progress toward that goal," the 68-year-old Whitacre said in a brief appearance.
Both men were chosen for their jobs by the U.S. government, which owns more than 60 percent of the Detroit automaker in exchange for giving it billions in loans. But Henderson is a GM insider, while Whitacre had no car experience before taking the GM chairmanship.
"I don't think this has much to do with Fritz Henderson's performance, I think it's just the wrong time to be a GM lifer," said Logan Robinson, a former Chrysler attorney and professor of corporate governance at University of Detroit Mercy.
Industry analysts said GM likely would look for someone like Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally, who was hired in 2006 from aerospace giant Boeing Co. Mulally also had no automotive experience, but unlike Whitacre, was well-versed in manufacturing.
An Obama administration official said Tuesday in a statement that "this decision was made by the board of directors alone. The administration was not involved in the decision."
Henderson, who rose through GM's ranks over a 25-year career, took over in March after the government forced out former CEO Rick Wagoner. A few months later, GM entered bankruptcy protection and Henderson led the company through a painful government-led and court-supervised reorganization. The company emerged from court protection in just 40 days cleansed of massive debt and burdensome contracts that would have sunk it without roughly $52 billion in federal loans.
The people close to Henderson, who asked not to be identified because Henderson has not spoken, said he was frustrated from the beginning by the board and government push for faster change and other questions about his decisions.
Henderson, one of the people said, was confident that the company was making progress and thought he deserved more autonomy. In the past few months GM has stabilized its U.S. market share at around 20 percent and has shown some monthly sales increases in the U.S. and Asia.
Henderson also has been largely successful in his goal to scale down GM to just four core brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC. He won a tentative sale of Hummer to a Chinese construction machinery maker. But attempts to sell the company's other brands have hit obstacles.
Swedish luxury sports car maker Koenigsegg Group AB backed out of a deal to buy GM's Saab brand. GM said Tuesday it has some interested bidders but will wind down Saab if nothing materializes by the end of the year. Henderson's bid to sell Saturn to race car mogul Roger Penske fell through and the brand is now liquidating.
And on Tuesday, GM released November sales figures that were 2 percent below the same month last year, when sales hit a 26-year low. The decline came after Whitacre began pushing for increased sales and market share.
Whitacre and the board have become increasingly active in the company's decisions, at times challenging some of Henderson's moves. In November, the board voted to abandon plans to sell GM's European Opel unit, reversing an earlier option favored by Henderson to sell it to a group led by Canadian auto parts supplier Magna International Inc.
"I think there was a perception he was too much of an insider," said Ken Elias, partner with Maryann Keller and Associates, an auto industry consulting firm. "The bankruptcy was not something that occurred because of the recession last August, it was coming for decades. The reality is GM truly needs an outsider as a leader that has no attachment."
Whitacre, a Texan, is known as a blunt talker. He was also the highest-paid telecommunications executive in the country when the retired in 2007, and his compensation was starting to draw criticism from shareholders and activists.
He joined Southwestern Bell, part of the national AT&T monopoly, in 1963 as a facility engineer. When he took over as CEO in 1990, the company was the smallest of the seven "Baby Bells" spun off in the 1984 government-ordered breakup of the Bell system.
Under Whitacre, the company started snapping up other parts of the old AT&T. It acquired three of its larger Bell siblings, as well as the long-distance company that bore the AT&T name.
His crowning achievement was the 2006 acquisition of BellSouth, which gave AT&T full ownership of Cingular Wireless and a leading role in the growing cellular industry.
GM could face difficulty in recruiting Henderson's replacement. Like other struggling companies that have received federal bailout money, any compensation package would have to be approved by federal pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.
In an agreement reached in October with Feinberg, Henderson's pay was cut 25 percent to $950,000, about half of what he made in 2008. In addition, Henderson received shares worth $4.2 million, to be exercised when GM becomes a public company again, perhaps late next year.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Hender...85166.html?x=0
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