Get ready for the New GM

Unless there is some sort of major, unforeseen hiccup, the sale of General Motors' assets--creating a new company--is expected to close Friday. The new GM will be 60.8 percent owned by the U.S. Treasury. The Canadian government will own 11.7 percent, and a United Auto Workers-run health-care trust will own 17.5 percent. GM bondholders will have 10.0 percent ownership.

The best assets of GM are set to emerge from a 38-day bankruptcy. The new company will be free of most of its debt and flush with $50 billion in U.S. funding.

GM will keep Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac. Pontiac will be phased out, and Hummer, Saab and Saturn will be sold. Good news for auto enthusiasts: Word on the street is that product guru Bob Lutz is now staying with the company indefinitely.

GM has scheduled a press conference for Friday at 9 a.m. Eastern, during which CEO Fritz Henderson is expected to update the media on GM's business activities. GM board chairman Edward Whitacre, former CEO of AT&T, will be at the press conference.

Judge Robert Gerber of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan approved the sale July 5 but kept it from being finalized until Thursday so that any opponents would have time to object. Two groups asking that their appeals be fast-tracked to the U.S. Court of Appeals were denied.

In his decision to allow the sale, Gerber said it would "prevent the death of the patient on the operating table."

GM is whacking about 1,380 dealers by October 2010, leaving it with about 4,100. GM said that it hopes to reduce that number to 3,600 by the end of 2010, some through attrition.

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