Done Deal: GM Out of Bankruptcy

As of 6:30 this morning, the new General Motors is on its way: The old firm sold its good assets to a new automaker backed by the government via a bankruptcy overhaul far speedier than experts expected, the New York Times reports. The new firm, Vehicle Acquisition Company, will soon be renamed General Motors. At an upbeat Detroit press conference 3 hours later, GM CEO Fritz Henderson promised to turn the impressive "speed and intensity" of the reorganization to making great cars.

The new, smaller GM will be 61% owned by the US; Canada and the United Auto Workers will hold the rest of shares. Now the hard part starts, the Times notes, as the company battles poor sales and adapts to a much smaller market share. The US will have pumped $50 billion into GM by year’s end; the government hopes it can go public again next year. “We are here to get the government out of the auto business,” says the US auto chief.
(More General Motors stories.)