Study up on Ed Whitacre. He was CEO and Chairman of the Board for Southwestern Bell; which incidentally went on to purchase Pacific Bell, Bellsouth, and finally the old AT&T. Under his guidance all of these heavily regulated entities were driven to profitability. Something that GM never learned. Business is business, and shareholder value is important. By the way, Mr. Whitacre moved the SBC headquarters from Missouri to Texas over onerous government taxes.
I am not critical of Ed Whitacre’s background. And he may be the man for the job, but I will never purchase another GM auto or pickup. And I have a Silverado P/U in the drive and a Saturn in the shop.
There is a difference in a utility like the Phone company and a manufacturing company which sells primarily to a consumer market.
A year from now I expect GM much heavier in supplying Government fleet purchases. There are a lot of soured investors, bondholders, and consumers who will not go to them again.
It is difficult to manage a mature company in tough times, but with the degree of the surgery they are doing to GM and Chrysler, mandated by the Government, and being told that they will focus on toy cars I feel it will fail.