Friday, October 21, 2005

Rick Wagoner amazes me. For those unaware of the latest debacle in the money market, GM posted a third quarter loss of .. "hold-yer-breath" .. US$1.1 BILLION. That's about $1.92 per share. What's amazing is that this debacle didn't tank their stock. But here's where CEO Rick came to the rescue with a classic PR rescue mission - supposedly entitled Project Distraction - and this clearly outlines how gullible investors really are. Prior to announcing the staggering losses, management cut health care costs by nearly $3 billion a year, as well as another $2 billion in structural cost cuts. Although the details of how GM plans to go about this are non-existant, Wagoner relied on the king size credibility that the auto giant has on The Street, and expected that these humongous (and virtually surreal) cost cuts would dilute the concentration of the loss amongst the investor peeps. Well ... he was right.

No comments: