The Freep is reporting that GM’s Renaissance Center headquarters could be at risk if so-called “retention tax credits” aren’t amended. GM is consolidating more of its workforce at its Warren Technology Center, and 1,500 of the RenCen’s 4,000 GM workers are reportedly making the move out of downtown. The remaining 2,500 workers would stay only if a Michigan Economic Growth Authority “retention” tax credit makes it worthwhile. The necessary amendments to this tax credit have been made, but MEGA still has to approve the package. A memo to the Growth Authority reveals the stakes:

2,500 is the maximum that they can also take for this portion of the credit. General Motors has submitted an application stating that the headquarters is at risk without this credit.

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Check out GM’s complete video of the conference here.

We liked Fritz. We felt that Fritz had more energy and more drive and got the message that things had to change and was being groomed to be CEO and deserved a chance… He’s shown that he can manage. Whether he can fundamentally change the culture of the company is another matter.

Bloomberg’s fresh sound bite from former car czarlet Steve Rattner. Well, considering you left him in charge, Steve, he’d damn well better change the culture of the company. Otherwise it reflects just as badly on the restructuring task force as it does on GM, doesn’t it? Come to think of it, picking Fritz because he had “more drive” than Rick Wagoner wasn’t really a good setup for fundamental culture change, was it? You don’t hire Larry to move your piano because he’s “higher energy” than Moe. But it’s not Rattner’s fault: GM’s inability to change its culture comes from its inability to hire the professionals. Which means Ken “the pay czar” Feinberg and his ridiculous pay limits are really to blame.

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Automotive News [sub] reports that President Obama’s Pay Czar has done an about face. Kenneth Feinberg pledged to remove the $500,000 salary cap for NEW executives hired for TARP-recipients—if he’s convinced that a rule-busting pay boost would help the bailout queens return U.S. taxpayer’s money. Feinberg’s climb-down comes just two days after New GM’s federally-appointed Chairman of the Board said that Uncle Sam’s pay caps could be, indeed should be, “modified.” Of course, Ed Whitacre didn’t make his suggestion directly. Nor did Feinberg reveal the locus of his “come to Jesus with cash” moment. “[Feinberg] said the automotive firms did not appeal his rulings. But he said he would be open to requests to hire in new executives at competitive pay. ‘If General Motors or any other company wants to bring someone in laterally — laterally — and competitive pay packages require that lateral hires get certain competitive pay, what have you, we’re perfectly willing to examine that.'” So the new rule: GM can hire someone for more than $500,000 in cash per year if that person was already making $500,000 per year doing the same job, only better (one would hope). Which would exclude, uh, no one. And create mucho resentment at that special place where RenCen’s express elevators ascend to glory. More Feinbergian 180 after the jump, and a mystery to be solved . . .

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GM CEO Fritz Henderson’s promises of independence for Opel made the right noises, but they carefully avoided any discussion of the actual role GM envisions for its German division within its global strategy. The latest updates seem to indicate that GM will keep Opel for its engineering expertise, but that the brand will be subordinate to Chevy’s global ambitions. Henderson delivers the slapdown [via Reuters]:

Opel is a regional brand and I don’t see that changing. That doesn’t mean I’m closed to ideas about how it can be used elsewhere; but the measure of the Opel brand’s success will be Europe, because if you don’t win here all the discussion of exports will be irrelevant

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Opel’s union boss and chief thorn-in-the-side for GM’s attempt at regaining control of its European division, Klaus Franz, recently met with CEO Fritz Henderson and is telling German media that “Henderson agrees that Opel should be led back to its traditional strengths in Europe, with a high level of independence  and autonomy within the GM organization.” But Franz is looking for more than kind words from Fritz, namely a future Opel share offering. “This way, GM can prove that it’s serious about Opel’s independence,” Franz tells RTL. Franz and Opel’s employees want a complete business plan along the lines of the one they’ve been negotiating for the past year and a half. Meanwhile, GM has also said that it will pay back the remaining €600m ($900m) worth of German government’s bridge loans by the end of the month. Between the Moody’s report that GM needs $8.5b to turn Opel around and the division’s continued desire for independence, a solution to the situation won’t be easy or cheap. It may be in GM’s strategic interests to keep Opel under its wing, but to what extent and at what cost?

Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska meets with Fritz Henderson, German Gref of Russia’s Sberbank and Siegfried Wolf of Magna. The state department had previously denied Deripaska a US visa for undisclosed reasons, but according to the WSJ, the FBI arranged for Deripaska to visit the US because “they were getting interesting information from him.” Deripaska denies any cooperation with US authorities.

The recent revelation that congresspeople have been successful in coercing GM to rescind dealer closures in their districts, has the rest of our elected representatives (not to mention GM itself) sitting up and taking notice. In a conference call with Michigan’s congressional delegation, Fritz Henderson said GM was close to a deal which would restore a number of “mistakenly” closed dealerships. But GM hasn’t met with rejected dealers in weeks, and the Committee To Restore Dealer Rights is unaware of any such agreement. “[Henderson] was very vague, and the plan sounded inadequate to me,” Michigan Republican Hoekstra tells Automotive News [sub]. “He explained, for instance, that they might reopen some franchises if they found errors, but he didn’t say what those errors might be.” Henderson also rejected the dealer demand for compensation of $3,000 per vehicle sold in 2006, 2007 and 2008, further supporting suspicions that GM doesn’t have a deal at all. So what is happening?
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