Day 59 and counting for General Motors: Fritz says it like it is

With less than two months remaining to determine its fate, newly christened General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson held a press conference Tuesday to show Wall Street and Washington that the buck stops with him.

He did a creditable job. No, he did not remind viewers of Alexander Haig so much as he played the part of confident commander in charge.

Time will tell whether Henderson has the stones and deft hand to pull this rabbit out. But in talking with those who have spent time around him, Henderson is a man possessed with confidence. That is not to say that he's enamored with his own abilities; he is quick-witted and articulate, and he reads a situation clearly and concisely.

And then he acts.

That's something GM desperately needs--a doer in this age of corporate triage. Still, whether the 59 days that he and the company have been given by the Obama administration are sufficient to get the job done remains to be seen.

If you had a chance to watch Henderson's first-day press conference, you, too, would have come away with a sense that he grasps the gravity of it all. You might also have picked up on things he said to drive the point home.

GM CORP.
Fritz Henderson at his first press conference as General Motors CEO on Tuesday.

First, he knows that to survive, GM must generate cash. It must clean up its balance sheet and make money. It's that simple. GM will not fund loss-leader programs simply because they are favorites. (OK, take the Chevrolet Volt out of that equation.) According to Henderson, every program must pay rent toward the bottom line.

Say good-bye to your money-losing albatrosses.

Such as? We know Saturn, Hummer and Saab are on the shopping or chopping blocks. Could other less-than-robust divisions such as Pontiac and GMC be far behind? Would anyone be surprised if GM became so lean and mean that it only consisted of Chevrolet and Buick?

Notice that I didn't include Cadillac. Caddy recently pulled its sales from much of Europe. You can hardly have a global company without offering cars for sale around the globe, now, can you? That's why you can bet that if Buick survives, it's only because it is such a huge player in China.

Yeah, Henderson shelled out tough words and tough love, and that's necessary in GM's new age.

To that point, Henderson also said--which we only hear as a loud shot across the bow of bondholders and the UAW--that GM is preparing for all contingencies. That includes a managed bankruptcy.

Hey, you guys in the wings, if you haven't been listening: It's time to suck it up and work a deal with Fritz to take what you can, because there isn't more coming. Otherwise, if GM goes BK or TU, you will be SOL.

By Dutch Mandel