Projo Cars Blog

SATURDAY, May 30, offered the kind of warm, sunny afternoon that rain-soaked New Yorkers had longed for all spring. In the theater district, crowds were gathering to catch a glimpse of Barack and Michelle Obama, who were planning to attend a Broadway show so the president could fulfill his campaign promise to his wife of a date night in Manhattan.

Fourteen blocks north, high up in a boardroom at 767 Fifth Avenue, Fritz Henderson was about to make the toughest decision of his life, and one that Mr. Obama and his advisers had seemingly foisted upon him.

As the clock ticked toward 6 p.m., Mr. Henderson told directors of General Motors that management believed the struggling auto company's only path was into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

"I'd been at G.M. 25 years, I'd been the C.E.O. 60 days, and here I was, recommending that G.M. file for bankruptcy," Mr. Henderson said in an interview with The New York Times last week.

Mr. Henderson, Mr. Obama and the scores of lawyers, financial experts and restructuring advisers whose careers were at stake were guiding G.M. along a financial, political and emotional tightrope a few months ago, and their decisions shaped what G.M. has become today. And it is not yet clear whether the risks they took, and the government's enormous investment, will pay off.

A successful G.M. turnaround could rank as one of the greatest restructuring efforts in business history, said Michael Useem, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

But if G.M.'s bureaucratic culture and consumers' disinterest continue to plague the company, the long days, intense negotiations and legal maneuvering -- not to mention tens of billions in taxpayer money -- will have been for naught. "The stakes are about as big as they've ever been for a company's remake," Professor Useem said.

 Tags  General Motors

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