GM manager shakeup wld slow recovery -CEO in paper
FRANKFURT, Dec 12 (Reuters) - A major management shakeup at
General Motors Corp. could slow the loss-making U.S.
carmaker's efforts to boost performance, GM Chief Executive Rick
Wagoner told industry newspaper Automotive News.
"When you bring in a lot of new people, you bring in a lot
of change and people just sort of sit there and try to figure
out what to do," he said in an interview published on Monday
amid mounting pressure on him to get GM sorted out.
The world's biggest carmaker has lost nearly $4 billion this
year and last week promoted its head of European operations to
the post of chief financial officer.
Wagoner, who has rebuffed calls to step down as CEO, refused
to put a public deadline on his attempts to revive the ailing
carmaker.
"Other people may or may not have timeframes, but it's not
what I'm worried about," he said. "I'm focused on the fact that
we need to fix the business, and that's really what is driving
me."
Wagoner said GM had not been nimble enough to adjust quickly
to slumping sales of high-margin sport-utility vehicles (SUVs)
this year.
"We just couldn't react," he said in an interview conducted
last week. "It really highlighted that the underpinnings of our
business are too fragile. So if we lose mix or volume, we cannot
get costs down as fast as (sales) volume comes down."
He added that sales volume for some of GM's new products,
especially mid-sized cars, had not met expectations.
"They're actually picking up some momentum now, but they
didn't start off strong," he said.
Next year, 30 percent of GM's sales volume will be generated
by vehicles that are less than 18 months old, Wagoner said.
The paper said Wagoner declined to predict whether GM's
North American automotive operations could break even next year
despite a wave of plant shutdowns.
GM plans to slash 30,000 jobs and close 12 facilities in
North America through 2008 as part of a broader restructuring.
He also would not say whether GM will offer buyouts to
workers at supplier Delphi Corp in a bid to avert a
strike that could cripple GM.
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