Will GM's 47-year-old CFO Ray Young be the next to go in a top management shake-up?
The downsizing of General Motors’ executive ranks continues, with numerous sources suggesting that the automaker’s Chief Financial Officer Ray Young will be among the next to go, as part of a shake-up in the corporate finance department.
Rumors have been circulating ever since the carmaker plunged into bankruptcy, earlier this year. Adding fuel to that fire, GM CEO Fritz Henderson’s announcement on July 10th, the day the company emerged from Chapter 11, that a third of all senior executives would be let go by the end of October.
So far, a wide range of once-prominent GM bosses have been packing up their corner offices, including Troy Clarke, formerly president of GM North America, while others, such as Gary Cowger, head of manufacturing, plans to retire by year’s end. So, few insiders would be surprised to see Young join them on the way out of GM’s Renaissance Center headquarters.
Young’s job actually seemed a bit more secure post-bankruptcy, some tea leaf gazers argued – noting that he was on hand for several key news events, even sitting nearby Henderson during the lengthy, post-bankruptcy news conference.
But the all-new General Motors Board of Directors has apparently been hearing some harsh words about the 47-year-old Young and his team, notably from Ron Bloom, who headed the auto task force that steered the bailout of Chrysler and GM. (Bloom was appointed the Obama Administration’s new manufacturing czar, earlier this week.)
With GM losing a total $88 billion since 2004, “it’s hard to feel positive about the finance department’s performance,” a well-placed source told TheDetroitBureau.com, though he also emphasized that with Young in his job less than two years – since March 2008 – it’s unfair to “make him the fall guy.”
Nonetheless, the GM Board could move quickly to shake things up in finance. The new directors are holding a two-day meeting that, among other things, is expected to address the future of the automaker’s troubled Adam Opel subsidiary. (The German government has been pressing for a sale of a controlling stake to a consortium led by the Canadian supplier, Magna, but GM has been resisting, and might even let the unit go into bankruptcy, according to various reports.)
A search team has reportedly been put in place to find a replacement for Young, reports the Detroit News.
The Chinese-born Young generated some headlines, when GM emerged from bankruptcy, initially telling the news media and analysts that the automaker would not provide financial guidance until it once again became a publicly-traded company. In a follow-up news conference, Young suggested that he had misspoken and that while GM wouldn’t release the various federally-mandated forms, it would continue to provide essentially the same financial guidance as before.