A federal judge over the weekend approved the sale of substantially all of General Motors Corp.s assets to NGMCO Inc. A spokesman for GM said Monday the asset sale will include all assembly plants including the plant in Arlington. The GM spokesman added that the sale announcement is not tied to any new staffing level reductions but previously announced reductions will take place.
NGMCO is a company funded by the U.S. Department of Treasury. The assembly plants will be part of the new GM when the sale closes at an undisclosed time this year the spokesman confirmed.
Meanwhile the current General Motors Corp. will change its name to Motors Liquidation Co. and its remaining assets will be wound down or sold.
GM employs 235000 employees worldwide. A GM representative said the goal set a month ago of cutting 4000 salaried employees by Oct. 1 2009 is still in play.
An attrition or voluntary-out severance package also was being offered to
hourly employees but a reduction target has not been set for that program.
In connection with the sale the company will change its name to General Motors Co.; be led by current president and chief executive officer Fritz Henderson and Edward Whitacre Jr. as chairman; and continue operations out of Detroit.
Edward E. Whitacre Jr. is the former chairman and CEO of AT&T.
General Motors Corp. appointed Whitacre to serve as chairman in June. Whitacre graduated from Texas Tech University in Lubbock and led Dallas-based AT&T which was then based in San Antonio from 1990 to 2007.
NGMCO will acquire GMs strongest operations and will have a competitive operating cost structure partly as a result of recent agreements with the United Auto Workers and Canadian Auto Workers according to GM.
GMs foreign subsidiaries will also be acquired by the new company and are expected to continue to operate without interruption.
The move is another step forward for the Detroit automaker which filed for bankruptcy last month to become an independent new company.
The new GMs common stock will be 61 percent owned by the government; 17.5 percent owned by the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust; the Canada and Ontario governments will own a 11.7 percent piece; and 10 percent will be owned by the old GM entity.
GM has already struck deals for its Hummer and Saturn brands. The Hummer division will be sold to China-based The Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. Ltd. based in Chengdu and the Saturn division will be acquired by national auto dealer Roger Penske.
