Top Automobile Story 2009 : GM bankruptcy
Top Automobile Story in 2009 : General Motors bankruptcy
By Ali Budiman
The economic crisis in second semester of year 2008, it seems really great. The Largest of American car maker, General Motor to not hold the power impact of this global crisis, and then sales continued to decline drastic forced to make GM lying off some employees. Until peak in May 2009, President of USA, Barack Obama says GM’s bankrupt and had to be helped according “Chapter 11” to save GM stakeholders : employee, suppliers, and off course customers.
GM products | Chevrolet Cruze
Once expressed by the U.S. Government bankruptcy some of his shares purchased by the government, then now General Motors rose and declared himself the New GM | GM Reinvention. Now, see how they are reinventing the automobile and their company:
The new GM is built and focuses on four core brands that Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick. These car brands have more than 80 percent contribution to total GM cars sales. Meanwhile, others products such as Saab, Hummer and Saturn are in the process to sales to others investor but currently still remain in the old company. But the most tragic was the GM had to close the 83-years-old Pontiac brand.
Before state to bail-out by President Barack Obama, General Motors is public automobile company. But currently after US Government injects funds GM is owned by U.S. Treasury (60.8 percent of share), VEBA (17.5%) and Canada & Ontario government has 11.7 percent of stake. The rest of 10% is own by others.
Currently to get more efficient operational, GM has cut U.S. employment from 91,000 at the end of 2008 to about 64,000 at the end of 2009. Also the number of GM Dealership has down from 6,000 dealers to about 3,600 dealers at December.
By this efficiency-strategic policy, GM hope to reborn, reinventing and become to market leader in global auto industry. We’ll see is it happening in year 2010. In national auto market alone, GM product has distributed by PT. General Motor Auto World Indonesia that sells Chevrolet cars i.e. Chevrolet Spark, Aveo, Kalos, Estate, Optra, and Captiva. GMAI plan to launch Chevrolet Cruze in early year 2010 to penetrate Small Sedan segment and compete with Toyota Corolla Altis, Honda Civic, and Mitsubishi Lancer.
