After eight months on the job, Fritz Henderson has stepped down as chief executive of General Motors. Board Chairman Ed Whitacre Jr., appointed in June, will replace Henderson on an interim basis.
Formerly GM’s chief operating officer, Henderson managed the company through its 40-day bankruptcy proceeding and streamlined the automaker’s offerings to four core brands. He joined GM in 1984.
Click here to read more about the executive change.
It has nothing to do with socialism. The dealers have NO rights in a bankruptcy. Perhaps the RW would prefer there are no BK laws… instead put people in debtors prison? Would you prefer liquidation? Yes, the gov’t is making huge mistakes. The administration didn’t ask for this. Car people and restructuring specialist have little in common. Yes, it is the task force driving the closing of dealerships, which I strongly disagree with. But I don’t understand the socialism word in this context unless you are a blind ditto head. A good free market right winger would have done nothing to prop up the industry and would have let them slide into liquidation. They call it creative destruction. Is that what you want?
Fritz Henderson is being blamed for the breakups of the Opel and Saab deals, but didn’t those occur under Chairman Ed Whitacre’s watch?
This will really inspire faith in GM’s board, axing a guy with no one in the wings to take his place. All of this at the most critical time in company history. I didn’t like Whiteacre from the beginning. Who does he think he is doing commercials, Lee Iacocca? He couldn’t carry Iacocca’s …. well, you know.
I’ve been upset with Fritz ever since he was put up to lying to Congress and the country about dealer terminations by the government Task Force. I’ve been disappointed by the Saturn debacle, but how was that Fritz’s fault? I have been surprised by the Opel affair, and wonder how the Task Force allows GM to use U.S. taxpayer money to pay off foreign governments. And the SAAB affair is a mystery, and probably not all that important in the scheme of things. We might have to wait for the next “tell all” book to get the real dope!