“This is another important step to strengthen our liquidity and provide resources to support our heavy investments in new products and technology.” And so General Motors' CEO Rick Wagoner heralded the sale of GM's Allison Transmission unit for $5.6b. Odd that. Allison has provided General Motors with new products and technology for eight decades, and billions upon billions of dollars in revenue. So is this another case of GM throwing its furniture into the fire to heat the house? You betcha.
Allison Transmission began life as the Indianapolis Speedway Team Company in 1915, fabricating quality parts for America's burgeoning automotive industry. In the roaring 20’s, Allison successfully applied its engineering and manufacturing skills to military airplanes (e.g. high-speed reduction gears for aircraft motors and propellers and Roots-type blowers).
When the company’s founder died in 1929, General Motors added Allison to its corporate portfolio. Since then, Allison has been at the forefront of its field, from the 1947 V-drive transmission to the Vietnam-era M551 tank to its new “world transmission.”
The company still focuses its energies on designing and producing automatic transmissions for trucks, buses, off-highway equipment and military vehicles. Allison's excellence has earned the company an 80 percent market share for medium- and heavy-duty commercial transmissions.
That expertise now belongs to The Carlyle Group and Onex Corp. The former is a private equity firm deeply involved in military contracts; the latter is a Canadian conglomerate with their mitts in everything from airplanes to makeup.
The new owners get Allison’s global sales and distribution network and seven (out of eight) manufacturing facilities. GM retains the Baltimore plant, which makes, amongst other things, hybrid drivetrains.
Allison’s two-mode hybrid system has been a huge commercial success. The system marries an internal combustion engine to a hybrid transmission: two electric motors/generators inside an infinitely variable transmission. With a nest of nickel metal hydride batteries, a vehicle using the Allison system can drive under electric power, combustive force or an adjustable combination thereof.
Buses with Allison’s hybrid system schlep passengers in Seattle, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Portland, Salt Lake City, Austin, Hartford, Houston and 38 more U.S. cities and parks (e.g. Yosemite). The hybrid-equipped vehicles achieve some 50 percent better fuel economy than diesel-only drivetrains.
The system also reduces emissions: nitrous oxides (50 percent), particulate matter(90 percent), carbon monoxide (90 percent), hydrocarbons (90 percent) and cardon dioxide (50 percent). Allison’s parallel hybrid electric system is quieter than its peers and faster off the line. And it's both scalable and adaptable; it can be fitted to nearly any size vehicle, front or rear wheel-drive.
Before The General off-loaded Allison, GM Powertrain’s group vice president proudly declared Allison’s handiwork “the most efficient hybrid architecture available in the world today.”
At the time, Tom Stephens also promised that “Our Allison Electric Drive System will help establish hybrid technologies as effective, practical and commercially viable beyond mass transit applications."
Hence GM’s retention of the Baltimore plant, where Allison is adapting their hybrid system to the automaker’s GMT-900-based SUVs. The Allison divestiture ought not interfere with the implementation of this program.
That said, the final decision on who gets what patents or rights to Allison’s hybrid technology is likely thousands of billable hours away. The future of GM's two-mode hybrid co-development partnership with Chrysler and BMW is also an open question.
Meanwhile, GM is exchanging Allison’s enormous potential in a growing field– and a not inconsiderable $2b annual turnover– for an immediate $5b cash injection. You could say it’s the bird-in-the-hand thing. But putting down your leg up on hybrid know-how seems more like a biting-off-and-swallowing-the-hand-that-feeds-you kind of thing.
Some analysts have lauded the Allison sell-off, claiming it brings GM's management team "closer to their core business.” That sort of spin is almost believable when referencing The General's decision to sell off half of its GMAC finance unit to the ravenous three-headed dog. But when you’re talking transmissions, the spin stops here. What’s more at the heart of an automobile manufacturer than the greasy bits that make the vehicles, you know, motive?
You don’t have to look too hard at the Allison sale to see that it reeks of desperation. There’s only one reason GM sold Allison: cash. There are only two possible motives. Either GM’s roasting in a cash conflagration or Rick Wagoner’s telling it like it is: the company is building-up a war chest to invest in the kind of new technology they just sold. Occam’s razor that.
During an extended period of unemployment, I reached the point where I was selling of personal items that had real sentimental value, such as my cowboy hat, Charger hubcaps, a camera, etc. It sucked, but it raised money. But I did eventually have to get a job.
Allison is GM’s cowboy hat.
But NickR, your cowboy hat wasn’t earning you any money, Allison was.
GM must be really hard up for cash. At least Ford is selling its unprofitable brands and (allegedly) keeping Volvo.
I can’t believe I’m defending GM on this one, but there may be another factor at work. The Detroit automakers are able to get union concessions from Tier 1 suppliers that can’t be had from their own employees. This has been true even of spin-offs such as Visteon and Delphi. Perhaps GM is hoping, albeit desperately, that a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy may work in coping with the intractably irrational UAW.
In the process, they are able to outsource subcomponents from domestic and overseas competitors, potentially reducing cost and increasing quality (though Allison doesn’t seem to have problems with the latter). At least this is the theory. I’m not aware of any GM cars that are sold with non-Delphi sound systems.
Why sell the one thing world class GM had?
Makes sense parking things of value (GMAC, Allison) if they have already decided to go bankrupt. There eventually would be nothing of any value on the table for creditors.
From what I recall reading, GM brass has been vocal in the media to proclaim that Hybrid vehicles are in one of two catagories: a fad that will fall away like the pet rock or a stepping stone intermediate technology while the world waits for E85 and full electric solutions.
If this article is accurate on Allison’s hybrid capabilities, it sounds like they really believe what they’ve been preaching.
It’s inconcievable that GM would sell Allison since it was arguably one of the best divisions they had, and 5.6 billion is a bargain for a world leader with huge market share. It sold for nearly as much as Chrysler did.
From what I recall reading, GM brass has been vocal in the media to proclaim that Hybrid vehicles are in one of two catagories: a fad that will fall away like the pet rock or a stepping stone intermediate technology while the world waits for E85 and full electric solutions.
Hybrids are a stepping stone but not to E85 or full electics. Hydrogen maybe. E85 gets lousy mileage, Full electric would tax the grid too much all year long.
Hydrogen is a poor energy storage medium. Plus, the hydrogen production and distribution infrastructure is limited. The DOE estimated the existing electric grid could handle something like 200 million plug-in cars. And it will be a lot easier to upgrade the existing grid than to create a hydrogen infrastructure.
E85 gets lousy mileage because we run it in engines optimized to use gasoline. Ethanol has a higher octane rating and can run higher compression ratios therefore producing more power and better mileage. The International Energy Association predicts that petroleum demand will outstrip supply in 2012, hydrogen is at least 20 years away if it ever becomes viable. Ethanol from biomass (cellulose) is available now but is not economically feasible.
The future is biofueled plug-in hybrids with a significant minority of all-electric cars. GM is stupid to give away their best card in the hybrid game.
GM’s raising cash to fund a healthcare deal with the UAW (a la Dana last week). They’re going to sell their medium duty truck division too for the same reason, although proceeds for that will be much smaller.
The market will get all excited. Wagoner will pound his chest on what a great job they’re doing addressing their structural cost disadvantage. Too bad it doesn’t fix the core problem – people don’t want to buy GM vehicles.
In the end, they’ll continue to shrink, bleed cash and sell more assets… and there’ll be plenty of additional fodder for more Death Watches.
Forget about hydrogen, it’s not a viable fuel, period. For the time and money required to develop the infrastructure, storage and generation methods, and proper fuel cells, we could upgrade the grid and build enough nuclear fission (or even fusion) plants to feed the world transport system many times over.
Maybe GM is counting on Volt-type plug-in hybrids becoming bread’n’butter cars and trucks in the next 5-10 years or so. This will render conventional auto transmissions pointless, as everyone will convert to locomotive-type direct-drive electric transmissions. In this case, sale of Allison is not as bad as it looks.
I doubt that they have such advanced foresight, though.
I think the best insight today belongs to NickR. While he had to sell off some stuff to keep food on the table, the key is that he did find a job eventually.
I think that criticism of GM is appropriate when their vehicles are substandard, which they often still are. But I don’t have a problem with GM (or Ford) selling off non-core businesses for cash, which RF has pointed out they do need.
At the end of the day, business history will judge Wagoner/Lutz on whether or not they turned GM into a cash generating machine. That story is not yet written.
This reminds me of the classic drunken relative selling the family jewels to buy whiskey. Just sad…
while $5B might seem like a low number considering yearly revenue of $2B, it is probably right on.
Margins on $2B are at best 10% more likely 5% making yearly profit something like $100M to $200M. Convert that into an anuuity at market rates and I bet you come awfully close to that magic 5B number if not a little short.
The wrench as previously stated, and which has been the case for almost every article concerning the Big 2.8 is whether they have any ability to act in their longterm interest, which as a public company, it “can” be argued, the Street doesn’t care about. “Show me next quarter”.
Obviously when Confused thinks “family jewels” he thinks of something different than I do…
Alex Rashev is bang-on. Hydrogen is a pipe dream perpretrated by companies making a lot of money from that dream, and by politicians in denial about the future of automotive transportation. (The future being that there is no future, at least not at the current 1.6 cars per household level).
Badger “Too bad it doesn’t fix the core problem – people don’t want to buy GM vehicles.”
Bingo there are two things going on with the GM Deathwatch. There is the business model problem and then there is the actual end product problem.
I think the $5B was to settle the Delphi ransom…Err…situation. Getting rid of a valuable/profit-making asset just to pee the procedes away on unproductive expenditures.
Seems like Cerberus, Carlye, blackstone et al are acting as uptown pawn brokers. Good work if you can get it.
Well GM will most likely get 30-35k from me (assuming they are not in or about to go into chap. 11) in a few years when I buy a 2010 Camaro Convertible or Coupe. Anyone who has seen the movie Transformers can not honestly tell me that the Chevy Camaro did not look fantastic. Iconic American Muscle for the new generation. And I come from the time when Camaro’s were for Mullet wearing rednecks or chicks with big hair and spandex.
I think could be a step in the right direction for GM. When Nissan was being restructured Carlos “Hybrids won’t be mainstream for a while and I don’t care what Toyota say” Ghosn, Ghosn was explicit in spinning off subsidaries and investments that didn’t maje sense. Now while Allsion did make profit for GM was it enough to justify GM OWNING the company? GM do need to return to car manufacturing in a big way. Toyota may retain a stake in Denso (their main supplier of parts) but Toyota prefer to concentrate on cars and trucks. The $5.6 billion might be enough to invest in the company (sensibly!) or be the cash they need to finance concessions from the UAW. Either way, they’ll see better return for that money.
However, the way GM executed it was a bit ham fisted and they certainly missed a trick. Instead of selling ALL of Allison, they should have retained a small stake (say 15%) to maintain some control over the company or at the very worse, have it written into the sale of Allison that GM will receive special deals and prices on parts.
But there is a sure fire way to help increase profitability, reduce headcount, reduce their dealer network, reduce their excess of brands AND have some more cash spare. And idea is……?
Sell Saab! Saab is adding nothing spectactular to GM’s cache and a drain on resources. The cherry on the cake is I reckon they’d have an instant buyer in Renault, who are always on the look out for a luxury brand. But if GM think this is a viable idea, then they better act quick, because the rumours are that Renault are using their stake in Volvo trucks to get them to buy Volvo cars back without using their (limited) cash up. Which was something I predicted on a previous deathwatch. Honestly, sometimes my brilliance just scares me…! ;O)
The Occam’s Razor principle favors the simplest explanation: GM is desperate for cash, and it is forced to sell good assets to fund operations and legacy costs.
In the 1920’s my grandfather worked as a timber surveyor, which sometimes required expeditions deep into the forest. My father would go along to assist. One cold, rainy day they came across a small cabin. The occupant invited them in to warm up by his fireplace. My father told me they found the fellow was pulling boards off the walls to feed the fire. Now, this had a certain logic: he was out of firewood and until the rain ended he couldn’t obtain more. But his solution yielded diminishing returns: as boards were consumed, the cabin got draftier and an ever-bigger fire was needed. Short term relief; long term harm.
For Toyota et al, the skies are sunny but the deluge continues for GM. I suspect their walls will before long get too weak to keep the roof up.
This is probably good news for Allison and GM. Allison gets new owners with a sterling track record in managing and growing engineering businesses , cash to invest and valuble contacts to new customers. GM couldn’t provide any of that.
In return GM gets cash to piss away on executive bonuses or maybe invest in a new model, who knows?
Mr. Farago’s indicated on this site this week that GM had 744,000 trucks currently in inventory (with the new models hitting showrooms in less than two months). Then another poster today indicated rebates on GM trucks are going up to $2,000.00 each. A quick calculation would indicate that if every truck in inventory was sold with the $2,000.00 rebate, the rebate cost to GM alone would be in excess of $1.4 billion, and that does not include the 300,000 non truck 2007 autos yet to sell, or any other promotion costs that may be tagged on. Say the non trucks took $2,000.00 each in incentives dump, then the total would be over $2 billion in rebates to get rid of the inventory, or the equivalent on nearly 40% of the money GM got for selling Allison.
It used to be Detroit Diesel / Allison for many years. GM sold Detroit Diesel to Roger Penske who later sold it to DCX.
It was probably just a question of time before GM unloaded Allison, which at one time was considered a “strategic” company since most of the military trucks have Allison transmissions.
The Detroit Diesel / Allison dealer went from one franchisor (GM) to two franchisors (DCX and GM) which could have been creating some challenges.
Allison evolved in its own orbit, doing business and making money, from that perspective it was an easy sale for GM. It also begs the question “Does GM have any easy sales remaining to raise money and get closer to its core business?”
Allison was one of GM’s “halo” divisions. They were a leader in piston and later turbine aviation engines. It was the Allison connection to the twin-tail Lockheed P-38 (engines) that led directly to the famous 1948 Cadillac fishtails. Legend has it that GM’s styling guru Harley Earl saw one of the first P-38s at a secret airbase and immediately began scribbling fins on car designs for the post-war era. Old-time GMers must be really sad about this one.
KatiePuckrik: Sell SAAB?
What exactly would GM be selling at this point?
– A brand that only appeals to 13 stuffy intellectuals who have never driven anything else?
– The ability to re-style a Malibu and move the ignition to an inconvenient place?
– A factory that is uncompetitive even within the GM manufacturing system?
– The advanced technology for putting a different grill and taillights on a TrailBlazer?
– A set of dealers that converted themselves to used car lots 15 years ago?
Face it, SAAB’s dead. There are no buyers.
Badger “Too bad it doesn’t fix the core problem – people don’t want to buy GM vehicles.”
What if the problem is that a significant percentage of the public doesn’t want to buy UAW made vehicles.
Hippo
“What if the problem is that a significant percentage of the public doesn’t want to buy UAW made vehicles.”
The public has bought plenty of UAW metal. I’ve never heard of someone saying “I’m not buying that! Screw the unions!”
Stop cutting corners and invest in cars that people want. If it sells support it…if it doesn’t…don’t change the grill and add a spoiler…axe it. It hurts NOW to kill something you’ve invested time and hopes in..but it’s fatal to push a crappy product with your name written all over it.
Having just visited the GM Canada website, I suggest that GM start small and hire some people who know how to code JAVA!!!
I wouldn’t be so sure. My thinking in part goes like this, as resources get scarcer one often hears of younger people, especially ones with expensive college educations + student loans + not so well paying jobs, being resentful of baby boomers and their pensions.
Why wouldn’t they either consciously or unconsciously be resentful of a specific segment of labor with no investment in education that is perceived as being comparatively grossly overpaid if benefits are included.
Just asking the question, not stating it as a fact, but I suspect that there is something to it.
Hippo,I dont think a significant amount of people know if the vehicle they just purchased is union made or not.
People are going to buy a vehicle that suits their needs( quality,style,economical-you know.)See mrcknievels post.That sums it up.
Another case in point…Toyota Tacoma.Mazda 6,I believe.Something along those lines.People buy the Tacoma because of Toyotas quality and it looks better than any offering of a mid-size pick-up the domestics have to offer.Guess who builds it?UAW.
Mike,
Maybe you are right, as the case of the Tacoma shows.
I also buy the first paragraph of your post, or maybe they just know enough to automatically associate 2.X vehicles with unions.
Hard to say, that’s why I throw the question on the table.
One more thing,being resentful of a baby boomers pension is really a waste of time.Im 33 yrs old & know quite a few younger people than me and the topic of a baby boomers pension has to this date never been a topic of discussion.
Why would I hold someone in less regard as far as income,high or low and education.High school diploma or not.4 yr. to 8 yr. degree & so on.
People that have an expensive higher education have many more options in advancement than a typical assy. line worker.And givin a fair shake and some intestinal fortitude these people could very well attain a level of pay no assy. line workers gonna touch.
Come to think of, it I guess I could hold a person in less regard.But only if I’m in a situation where Im looking to hire someone.Then the higher the education and personality the better.
Hippo asked “What if the problem is that a significant percentage of the public doesn’t want to buy UAW made vehicles”?
I have nothing against buying a UAW-made vehicle. My preference is simply to buy products made in the US or Canada. If the product was put together by the UAW or CAW, that’s fine. My reservation is that the history of an oligopolistic industry with a monopolistic labor supply has resulted in payroll and retiree costs that are way above free-market levels. And the extra expense of gold-plated health care for a 54 year old retiree means there’s less money for better interiors, more durable components or R&D.
In the history of the world there has never been a better time to be 20 years old. The entire world (with the possible exception of NA and Europe) is moving rapidly toward free-market capitalism with near infinite opportunities to become filthy rich. So bust your butts 20-somethings because you will be paying for my “free” prescription drugs in about 20 years. Aside from a huge head start, Keith Richards will have nothing on me.
How about this as a novel idea. People choose to buy or not buy a car based on the merits of the car itself. Maybe thats what most people do.
The Corrolla and Tacoma are hardly sales flops.
The mania for selling “non-core” businesses is a fad which should have already burned out, but hasn’t. Wall Street analysts are mostly overpaid self-important business school types who have never really earned their stripes building anything. Wise management and investors ignore these “analysts”.
The RV business has grown by leaps and bounds in the past three decades, after GM bailed out of it. Premium priced home appliances are selling like crazy as the value of the US’s housing has skyrocketed, but GM no longer owns Frigidaire and doesn’t get to participate. Motorola was once a huge manufacturer of televisions, but sold off the Quasar division decades ago when they thought they all of the interesting work was over in televisions …. I guess they didn’t think of the day when high priced large flat screens would be the major driver of consumer electronics sales.
Allison was one of the few jewels in GM’s portfolio, and the damn fools got rid of it. Just when the value added in the transmission portion of the drivetrain in exceeding that in the engine GM bails on Allison. Dumb and dumber. Would someone please turn out the lights at GM so that the insanity can just stop!
ex-dtw posted:
while $5B might seem like a low number considering yearly revenue of $2B, it is probably right on.
Margins on $2B are at best 10% more likely 5% making yearly profit something like $100M to $200M. Convert that into an anuuity at market rates and I bet you come awfully close to that magic 5B number if not a little short.
What I had read earlier is that Allison return is closer to an unbelieveable 20% and that profit is very close to $400 mil on the $2Bil. revenue. I was trying to find the link to the article I read that but I’m about 100% certain those were the numbers because I had to read them a number of times to make sure I wasn’t delusional or on drugs. Those numbers are simply amazing, and you can see why someone would want to pay $5.6 Bil for a relatively “small” company.
Then my next thought was “Why in the hell would GM get rid of such a terrific asset?” Of course, that’s been covered ad nauseum here so I won’t go into that. Seems to me that GM should have kept Allison around just to learn something from them.
Its not a matter of wether or not people want to buy GM vehicles. Its a matter of less people wanting to buy GM’s profitable vehicles and GM’s profitable vehicles simultaneously becoming less profitable as their now competetive cars earn little to negative profit. There is no way for them to recover in their current form. Even if they started to sell millions of Malibus they would still be losing money.
It seems obvious to me that this move was driven by necessity. The burning the house to stay warm analogy is almost correct but missing the element of certain demise with every other choice. It would be more accurate to look at it as being stuck on a barren, deserted island and eating your own body to stave off death a little while longer in hopes someone would soon rescue you.
Something tells me that the guy burning the house may not have really owned it. Likely he didn’t build it or earn the money to buy it. Changes one’s attitude.
Maybe someone could look into how much of GM the people making these decisions really own. Did they buy those shares with money they earned, or did they “earn” those shares as part of their compensation from GM.
If I could get a job that pays 2 million a year after investing a million of my own assetts, that would be a lot different than investing tens of millions to show that I was bought in.
How many of these guys at GM really have their heart in it?
“General Motors Stock Price Being Manipulated By ‘Plunge Protection Team\'”
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/englund/2007/0709.html
Worth reading, and explains much.
Don’t forget who is buying all of these assets. Carlyle Group is D.C. based and is the most-highly political of private equity groups. They just bought Manor Healthcare too. What can our politicians control spending most tightly on?…healthcare and the military. No wonder they were interested in buying a military supplier, eh?
They are in the unique position to vote themselves business for their new transmission plant (and then to make money the employee healthcare). If only GM could do that…
At least Carlyle is less likely to “strip and flip” given this relationship. Unfortunately, they are more likely to make taxpayers contribute unreasonable profits into their pocketbooks than into GM’s corporate coffer.
SherbornSean:
July 10th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
KatiePuckrik: Sell SAAB?
What exactly would GM be selling at this point?
– A brand that only appeals to 13 stuffy intellectuals who have never driven anything else?
– The ability to re-style a Malibu and move the ignition to an inconvenient place?
– A factory that is uncompetitive even within the GM manufacturing system?
– The advanced technology for putting a different grill and taillights on a TrailBlazer?
– A set of dealers that converted themselves to used car lots 15 years ago?
Face it, SAAB’s dead. There are no buyers.
OK, there’s no need to be like that. I believe that Saab can still be saved. Remember, it was GM that crushed the quirky spirit of SAAB. If GM sold it, a bigger car company could allow it some autonomy to bring that soul back. Just like Sir Anthony Bamford is trying to buy Jaguar to re-inject some passion into it’s dull vehicles.
Anyway, even if GM sell SAAB for a song, what they’ll get out of the sale is more valuble than money. They’ll allieviate their brand portfolio, reduce head count, possibly give Buick a market to gun for, reduce dealer network and have a bit more cash and resources to play with.
I believe that someone like Renault or FIAT could restore SAAB to the plucky, niche brand it used to be. I mean only a complete fool would buy a niche brand like SAAB and crush its spirit completely so it will sell rebadged cars and have cars with the underpinnings and platforms of a medicore sedan! Right, GM…..?
I’d have no problem with GM selling SAAB, but there isn’t much there to sell. Its only remaining value is in its brands, a tiny distribution network, and possibly some modest bit of plant and equipment, so it wouldn’t be worth much.
I’m not sure what all of that is worth, but I doubt that the proceeds would even be enough to pay for a fraction of Rick Wagoner’s disastrous deal with FIAT, which cost them $4 billion. (You have to admit that’s impressive — it’s rare to find a guy who can just about single-handedly take credit for losing his employer $4 billion in just a few years.)
This Alison deal is so breathtakingly stupid that it’s hard to know where to start. More to the point, it shows you that GM’s current strategy seems to be one of fooling the stock analysts (getting them to believe that cutting costs will save the company, when that doesn’t help get anyone into the showroom) in order to raise the company’s market cap, which will improve its borrowing capacity and give it more access to cash that it can squander like an addict with an ATM card invest in new, not-so-exciting products that nobody not named Avis is going to buy.
It’s an example of running the company by the numbers, which is why they are in much trouble as they are. The sell-off is a symptom of a much deeper problem — no one at the top takes this crisis very seriously, and is either in it for their own personal gain (ride it out and milk it for as long as possible) or else really believe this happy talk that has no substance behind it. They are selling off the crown jewels to finance a turnaround plan that doesn’t exist.
The real disaster here is that if and when GM files BK, the lack of available cash generators in the stable such as Allison increases the likelihood that this filing will end up in Chapter 7 (liquidation), rather than 11 (reorganization). To get through bankruptcy, you need a semi-credible plan that includes generating revenue to pay for it, but at that point, what is going to be left to generate it?
hikers
Two hikers are walking in the woods when they stumble across a ferocious bear. Immediately one drops to the ground,sheds his jacket and exchanges his boots for sneakers. The other hiker says “what are doing,we’ll never outrun that bear” The first hiker says”I don’t have to outrun that bear,just you” I think GM will be around longer than Ford.
I bet Ford has the better sneakers on. Better product lineup, more rational company structure, not so many excessive dealers. GM’s fall in truck sales in June makes GM look like dead meat.
Allison is small potatos. Production is low, geared to the truck market, not the auto market. Makes sense to sell it. (GM kept the plant making mass market Allison Transmissions).
I agree the plunge protection team is all that is holding the stock up. Completely legal. When the time comes, fortunes will be made shorting GM stock. I should have retired when Dana plunged. Their stock died in one year. GM will go much quicker once the PPT pulls the plug.