GM Presses Eject Button On Henderson
Earlier this year, the wheels finally came off the auto maker. It wheeled out a new chief executive, former chief financial officer Fritz Henderson. His subsequent wheeling and dealing to offload subsidiaries like Adam Opel foundered. Now, with his resignation announced late Tuesday following a board meeting, it looks like Mr. Henderson has been thrown under the wheels.
Divisions between Mr. Henderson and the board had appeared over issues like the U-turn on selling Opel and the prospects for a GM relisting.
In one sense, Mr. Henderson's departure is encouraging. Its balance sheet cleansed, the priority at GM was cultural change. Yet the company's senior ranks remain the preserve of veterans. Product-quality issues remain a concern, and the company, like Chrysler, has even started ladling out incentives to customers in a troubling echo of Detroit's past.
Bringing in new blood is, to be fair, pretty hard when major shareholder Uncle Sam is capping pay offers. And that is why any encouragement taken from Mr Henderson's resignation dissipates quickly. The manner of his going highlights the work still required, even as executives must appease political paymasters. Clearly, GM's road to recovery remains long.
One company that can take encouragement is Ford Motor. GM's board must wish it could find its own Alan Mulally: an outsider brought in as CEO who has steered Ford skillfully thus far. Ford knows its big Detroit rival remains in disarray. That should mean less competition for customers and, with a GM initial public offering looking farther off than ever, less competition for investor dollars.