GM’s board of directors will vote in August on the possibility of selling or eliminating more brands than just Hummer. These decisions will be made to help GM return to profitability in 2010, say sources cited in a Wall Street Journal report. Oddly, Saturn, whose products have improved greatly in the last few years, is amongst the possible candidates for closure.
As reported earlier, the General is already attempting to sell its Hummer brand. Of its eight brands, the only ones GM is not considering getting rid of are Cadillac and Chevrolet .
So, why is Saturn on the block? According to the report, many analysts suspect Saturn has never made a profit in its nearly 20-year history. Most auto journalists would agree Saturn’s new models are vastly improved, but for reasons possibly related to a poor brand perception, sales have not improved proportionally.
Since most of Saturn’s new cars are rebadged Opels, it’s conceivable that GM could attempt to sell certain imported Opel models under the Chevrolet name if Saturn was closed. GM recently froze development of the next-generation Saturn Aura, an ominous sign for the brand. The new Aura is simply a rebadged version of the new Opel Insignia, so putting a relatively simple project like this on hiatus certainly raises eyebrows.
GM is also said to be considering cutting countless white-collar jobs. Its’ not clear how many of the auto giant’s 76,000 corporate positions are at risk, but the number should run in the thousands as the automaker needs to raise as much as $15 billion to avoid bankruptcy, as per last week’s Merrill Lynch report.
