General Motors Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said Tuesday he planned to keep his job even if the U.S. carmaker strikes a three-way alliance with Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co.
“I have no intention of leaving my position at GM. We are in the middle of a huge turnaround that’s getting a lot of momentum, and we really need to stay focused on that,” he told reporters when asked if he would step down should Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of both Renault and Nissan, get a GM board seat.
“Let’s see if value is created for the shareholders and then how to create that value, and it is not clear to me that that process leads you to the conclusion that we need to change the governing structure of GM,” he added later.
The three automakers agreed last week to review the benefits of an alliance and gave themselves 90 days to do a deal.
Wagoner declined to give any more details about the talks after what he called a “cordial” dinner with Ghosn in Detroit on Friday at which they shared a meal and Californian wine.
Pressed about a possible deal, Wagoner told reporters at the British International Motor Show: “If there is value to be created and it’s the best option for GM shareholders, we’d be glad to do it, as we have shown time and again.”
Wagoner told CNBC television in an interview that there were no alliance talks with Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp.
“We haven’t had any discussions with Toyota on this matter,” he said, adding: “I don’t have any plans to have any discussions with Toyota on this matter.”
But he added the board would have to look at any alternative plan that would be presented to it.
Asked about a possible link with Ford Motor Co, Wagoner said: “There is a lot of speculation on every possibly conceivable alternative, but really our first job is to get our business turned around. That is our primary focus.”
Wagoner was in London to unveil the Opel/Vauxhall Corsa subcompact car, which hits European showrooms in October. GM is counting on it to boost sales and revenue in Europe.
He said GM had no plans at this stage to roll the car out in the United States. “But obviously in this day and age you can’t rule anything out. (As) gas prices keep going up, I think the prospects might grow,” he said.
Turmoil in the Middle East was boosting energy prices and could affect consumer sentiment, he said.
“It is clear that those kinds of events are pretty unsettling in an environment of already fairly high oil prices. We are watching it with a lot of close attention. We haven’t seen any big impact yet, but we have to be on our toes there.”
Asked whether GM would make money in Europe this year for the first time since 1999, he said: “That remains our focus.”
GM is in the process of cutting its European workforce by nearly a fifth to address slack markets and ferocious competition, which are keeping pressure on prices and margins.
It has also announced it will close a delivery van plant in Portugal at the year end and drop one shift at its Ellesmere Port car plant in Britain. Asked if more steps might be needed to reduce GM manufacturing capacity in Europe, he said:
“Those are pretty big moves on top of the very significant moves made over the last couple of years. Let’s get those executed and then we’ll have to see, but competitiveness is an ongoing battle in Europe, the U.S. and really around the world.”
GM lost $10.6 billion in 2005 as it struggled with high labor costs, sluggish sales of profitable sport utility vehicles and the loss of U.S. market share to foreign rivals.
Wagoner said it had to resist the temptation of fuelling short-term sales gains at the expense of profits, noting it had deliberately scaled back unprofitable business.
This “already started to help in June a little. We see retail sales strengthening, and July looks pretty good too, so far,” he said.
