GM - General Motors

[fareastwarriors]

GM's Latest Recall Wreck Claims the Storied Camaro

 

 

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-13/gms-latest-recall-wreck-the-camaro

[fareastwarriors]

GM Recall Charge at $700 Million as Tally Hits 20 Million

 

 

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-16/gm-recalling-3-16-million-additional-cars-for-ignition-issues.html

[PLynchJr]

Ex GM engineer gives insight into screwed up culture at GM.

 

http://jalopnik.com/ex-gm-engineer-explains-how-companys-culture-rewards-in-1593313126/+laceydonohue

[Liberty]

Ex GM engineer gives insight into screwed up culture at GM.

 

http://jalopnik.com/ex-gm-engineer-explains-how-companys-culture-rewards-in-1593313126/+laceydonohue

 

Good read. Scary to think how many companies have cultures like that..

[fareastwarriors]

Air bag accident, lawsuit led to GM Cruze recall

 

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101794005

[fareastwarriors]

GM Recalls 8.45 Million Vehicles in North America in 6 Actions

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-30/gm-recalls-8-45-million-vehicles-in-north-america-in-6-actions.html

[merkhet]

http://online.wsj.com/articles/chryslers-u-s-sales-rise-9-2-in-june-1404216833?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

 

GM—which has recalled about 29 million cars and trucks in North America this year—said it sold 267,461 total vehicles in June, up 1% from a year earlier. Auto researcher Kelley Blue Book had expected GM sales to slip 3.7%, while automotive-information provider Edmunds.com had anticipated an 8.% drop.

[Avyalake]

GM Owners Buy New Models While Recalled Autos Go to Shop

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-02/gm-owners-buy-new-models-while-recalled-autos-go-to-shop.html

 

“You bring in a 2007 Saturn with 140,000 miles on it, we’re certainly prepared and ready to do the recall,” said Paddock, whose store near Buffalo, New York, is deriving as much as 12 percent of its business from recall customers. “The next thing you know, the consumer is in the showroom, saying, ‘Boy, oh boy, that Cruze looks sharp.’”

 

“The hardest part of selling is getting people in the door,” said Jesse Toprak, an analyst with researcher Cars.com. “Multiply that by millions of recalls and that’s a lot of people coming to the dealership.”

[fareastwarriors]

GM Owners Buy New Models While Recalled Autos Go to Shop

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-02/gm-owners-buy-new-models-while-recalled-autos-go-to-shop.html

 

“You bring in a 2007 Saturn with 140,000 miles on it, we’re certainly prepared and ready to do the recall,” said Paddock, whose store near Buffalo, New York, is deriving as much as 12 percent of its business from recall customers. “The next thing you know, the consumer is in the showroom, saying, ‘Boy, oh boy, that Cruze looks sharp.’”

 

“The hardest part of selling is getting people in the door,” said Jesse Toprak, an analyst with researcher Cars.com. “Multiply that by millions of recalls and that’s a lot of people coming to the dealership.”

 

that's one way to get people in the door...

[LC]

What are the terms of these recalls? Are dealers/owners given some sort of credit towards a new vehicle?

[hyten1]

funny how this turn out (in some respect), would this allow GM to reduce some marketing spent or i guess redirect them to making sure its reputation is not tarnish too much :)

 

hy

[jay21]

Digging through some old data/articles to better understand the history of GM and their problems:

 

The remarkable thing is that, once you account for the economic cycles, the trend for GM is exceptionally steady — an exceptionally steady trend downward. There were still bad times thirty years ago — but they weren’t bad enough to threaten GM’s survival, and conversely, the good times were much better. These are General Motors’ operating margins by decade:

 

Average Annual Operating Margin, General Motors

1960s: 8.7%

1970s: 5.5%

1980s: 3.0%

1990s: 1.3%*

2000s: -0.5%

* Excludes one-time $20 billion accounting charge for retiree health benefits in 1992.

 

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gms-problems-are-50-years-in-making/

 

What's GM's current operating margin target?  Does it make sense relative to their peak operating margins?

 

 

[fareastwarriors]

G.M. Resists Recalling Trucks Over Brake Lines

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/automobiles/gm-resists-recalling-trucks-over-brake-line-problem.html?_r=0

[dcollon]

Warren Buffett Shares The Inside Scoop: He Bought A Cadillac, Not A Subaru

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2014/07/15/warren-buffett-shares-the-inside-scoop-he-bought-a-cadillac-not-a-subaru/

 

[fareastwarriors]

GM says sold 2.5 million autos in second quarter, best since 2005

 

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/sns-rt-us-autos-gm-sales-20140716,0,7782726.story

[fareastwarriors]

At Hearing on G.M. Recall, Mary Barra Gives Little Ground

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/business/senate-hearing-on-general-motors.html?ref=business

[compounding]

New Caddy boss knows luxury - De Nysschen's track record brings him to GM

 

http://www.autonews.com/article/20140714/OEM02/307149918/new-caddy-boss-knows-luxury

 

http://www.autonews.com/article/20140710/OEM02/140719982/infiniti-boss-de-nysschen-to-leave-nissan-s-luxury-brand

 

Seems like an interesting appointment due to GM's relative lack of success in the luxury segment.

[fareastwarriors]

GM orders sales halt for recalled Cadillacs

 

 

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101852011?trknav=homestack:topnews:19

[fareastwarriors]

GM Recalls Continue With Newer Model Camaros, Cadillacs

 

 

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-23/gm-recalls-continue-as-newer-model-camaros-cadillacs-flagged.html

[nikhil25]

GM's Profit, Hit by Recalls, Tumbles 80%

Auto Maker Sets Aside $400 Million for Ignition-Switch Compensation Plan

http://online.wsj.com/articles/gms-profit-hit-by-recalls-tumbles-80-1406201978

 

A $2.5 billion pretax bill for safety recalls and a victims' compensation fund slashed General Motors Co. GM -1.99%  's second-quarter profit and highlighted the work it must do to close a profitability gap with rival Ford Motor Co. F -1.46%  , which reported stronger results for the quarter ahead of a critical product launch.

 

GM on Thursday reported a $278 million profit, off 80% from a year earlier, as special items offset North American operating-margin expansion and continued growth in China.

[fareastwarriors]

GM Misses Red Flags From Rental Car Canaries on Crashes

 

 

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-31/rental-car-firms-pushed-gm-on-fatal-crashes-before-recall.html

[MYDemaray]

Move over Bank of America...there's a new pinata in town:

 

http://online.wsj.com/articles/gm-financial-says-justice-department-subpoenaed-documents-1407165787?mod=yahoo_hs

[fareastwarriors]

Thai unrest knocks GM off course in Asean

 

 

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1bbb90d0-1c75-11e4-98d8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz39RglzbQF

 

General Motors said it was “struggling” in southeast Asia as the recent political upheaval in Thailand knocked sales, compounding stiff competition from Japanese rivals and local currency weakness that has hurt the profitability of vehicles due to imported parts.

 

The admission is a sign that fluctuations in emerging market currencies are causing the largest US carmaker by sales to rethink its strategy in a region seen by carmakers as one of the world’s most promising and increasingly benefiting from a rising middle class.

 

 

“We are struggling in Asean for many reasons – mainly due to the political impact in Thailand,” said Stefan Jacoby, head of GM’s consolidated international operations, a unit that includes all of the carmaker’s businesses outside North America except China and Latin America.

 

Asean is the 10-member bloc known as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Thailand is the second-biggest economy after Indonesia.

 

In Thailand, where GM claims a 4.3 per cent market share, Japanese carmakers Toyota and Honda have for decades been dominant, and they have built extensive supplier networks across Asean.

 

While Toyota and Nissan have also suffered falling sales as a result of the political turmoil in Thailand, GM’s reliance on imported parts for some of its vehicles sold in the country has been exposed by the declining Thai currency, Mr Jacoby said.

 

He estimated that annual vehicle sales in Thailand were now under 850,000 units, well down from 1.45m in 2013.

 

The Detroit-based carmaker plans to increase the proportion of vehicles made locally to reduce its exposure to the Thai baht – a move Mr Jacoby indicated had wider implications for the company’s regional operations.

 

“With relative weakness in emerging market currencies you need to be independent from those currency fluctuations and that means you have to create deep local content not only with ‘tier one’ but also ‘tier two’ suppliers,” he said at the official opening of a new regional office in Singapore on Tuesday.

 

 

He declined to say how much of GM’s vehicles in Thailand were made using locally produced parts, but admitted that the company was “less localised” than its main competitors.

 

He said the carmaker had no plans to withdraw from production at its plant in Rayong province, in which GM has invested $1.5bn and opened in 2000.

 

However, the former chief executive of Volvo said GM still needed “the right scale of products” and had “a lot of homework to do when it comes to our dealer network and our brand”.

 

GM recently redoubled efforts to penetrate Asean, where it has yet to turn a profit on a regional basis since establishing a southeast Asian unit in 1993.

 

That has included spending $150m on refurbishing an assembly plant outside Jakarta that it closed in 2006.

 

GM’s new Singapore office marks a return to the Asian city-state, which hosted the company’s Asian headquarters until 2004 when the carmaker moved to Shanghai.

 

However, GM last year said it would return to Singapore, where its consolidated international operations unit oversees markets in Asean, Africa, India, South Korea and the Middle East, as well as the European operations of Chevrolet – its best-selling brand – and Cadillac, its luxury marque.

 

[fareastwarriors]

Focusing on G.M. Unit, U.S. Starts Civil Inquiry of Subprime Car Lending

 

 

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/focusing-on-g-m-unit-u-s-starts-civil-inquiry-of-subprime-car-lending/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog Main&contentCollection=Legal/Regulatory&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body

[Picasso]

Any views here on the pension liability?  I have always viewed GM stock as a play on interest rates given the size of the pension and unfunded liability gap.  If I remember correctly, each 1% change in rates affected about $13 billion of pension liability.  I need to take another look at the recent 10K.

 

If rates here in the US start to converge with other parts of the world, there may be a situation where that liability increases another $10 billion or so which makes the stock not as inexpensive as it originally looks.

 

However if rates move up a lot then you are looking at a massive upward adjustment in book value.