General Motors has revamped the way it operates, with sharply lower costs, stronger brands and gains in key emerging markets like China, Chief Executive Ed Whitacre said in a pitch for the company's planned IPO.
Speaking to Wall Street analysts and potential investors for the first time after GM's emergence from bankruptcy in 2009 and ahead of a planned stock offering later this year, Whitacre on Tuesday tried to draw a distinction between the new GM and the automaker that was restructured in a U.S. government-funded bankruptcy.
"We're not reintroducing GM today. We're introducing a new GM, because we are a new and much different company than we were 12 months ago," Whitacre said at an event GM hosted at its product development and engineering center in Warren, Michigan. About 200 members of the financial community and other stakeholders attended the GM presentation.
The first-of-its kind update on GM's financial progress by its leadership team comes as the largest U.S. automaker prepares for an initial public offering, one that is expected to be among the largest U.S. IPOs ever.
The event marked the de facto start of a roadshow for a stock sale that would allow the U.S. Treasury to step aside as the majority shareholder in the top U.S. automaker and that bankers said could raise up to $20 billion.
Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said bankruptcy restructuring has allowed GM to break even at the bottom of the industry's downturn, while producing in a lowered cost structure that would present "massive opportunity' when the market recovers.
Full story
