GM offers retirement deal

Retirement deal offered

General Motors Corp. is offering retirement incentives to eligible salaried workers this week as it works to cut nearly 5,000 salaried employees.

The cuts are part of a plan to cut $10 billion in spending and sustain GM until 2010. GM aims to cut about 15% of its U.S. and Canadian salaried workforce.

GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson said eligible U.S. salaried workers this week will receive sealed, individualized offers based on age, years of service and work history. Those workers will then have 45 days, plus a seven-day grace period, to decide whether to accept a buyout, he said.

GM would not detail the structure of the offers, but some salaried employees who were briefed said GM appears to be offering pension payments that are better than those they would normally receive. For example, a worker age 58 is expected to receive a pension payment more like what he or she typically would receive at age 62.
Flint OKs incentives

The Flint City Council on Monday night approved tax incentives to help persuade General Motors Corp. to build an engine plant that will build the gas engine for the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car and the Chevrolet Cruze compact car.

GM has said it would begin construction of the $350-million plant this year and be ready for production by 2010, when GM has said it expects to begin selling the Cruze and the Volt, if GM and its partners can figure out the battery technology.
Daimler gets stake

Daimler AG said it has taken ownership of the stake held by former U.S. unit Chrysler LLC in a Chinese car-making joint venture.

Daimler now has half of the collaborative effort with Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co., said Florian Martens, a spokesman for the Stuttgart, Germany-based company. The venture, which makes Chrysler’s 300C and Sebring sedans for China, will still produce vehicles for the U.S. automaker, he said.

Martens declined to say whether Daimler paid Chrysler for its stake. Chrysler declined to comment.
Blue Water deal allowed

Blue Water Automotive Systems Inc., a maker of plastic parts for U.S. automakers, won court approval to sell a plant and equipment for $6 million to CIT Group Inc. and Engineered Plastic Components Inc.

CIT, an investment firm and Blue Water’s biggest creditor, agreed to buy the plant in St. Clair in exchange for $3 million in debt, while Engineered Plastic, a unit of partsmaker Alcoa Fujikura Ltd., bought machinery and equipment for $3 million in cash. The sales were approved Tuesday by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marci McIvor in Detroit.

“The sale will allow for many jobs in the facility to be saved,” Blue Water CEO James Sampson said Tuesday in an e-mail.

Blue Water, based in Marysville, had more than 1,200 workers when it filed a Chapter 11 petition Feb. 12, citing falling U.S. car sales. It owes $33.6 million in unsecured claims, $15 million on a revolving credit and $19.5 million in other secured claims, court papers show.

The company presented a Chapter 11 liquidation plan for approval at a hearing in Detroit. General Motors Corp., a creditor, said it wants the case converted to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy to allow a government-appointed trustee to take over management.

Source : Freep

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