Holden future looks brighter

Company chairman and managing director, Mark Reuss, said the yesterday local operation was one of three "vital subsidiaries in the Asia-Pacific" and a key part of the "new GM" empire.

GM-Holden is bolstered by its close association with GM-Daewoo and Shanghai GM in China, two areas of GM's old empire that continue to grow.

After months of speculation over its local operations, a clearly relieved Reuss, was upbeat about the future as GM filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday.

“We are safe, we are part of the new GM," he said.

Reuss said no more jobs would be lost in Australia ‘right now’.

"This is an opportunity for the parent company to restructuring and create the `new GM', of which Holden is a vital part of."

Reuss said GM-Holden was cashflow positive and "we're on the verge of turning a profit here this last month, even in a down business".

He said Holden had been operating as a "stand-alone" business here and created its own luck.

As part of the "new GM" the company will now more aggressively seek new export markets for its cars after the axeing of the Commodore-based Pontiac G8 export program to North America and downturn in Middle East business.

Reuss said GM-Holden had a viable, sustainable business here in the long term despite continuing concern by some analysts of how a smaller, leaner General Motors would impact the local company when it traded out of bankruptcy protection.

GM expects to move out of bankruptcy protection in 60 to 90 days.

Reuss said 50 per cent of GM-Holden's business was export.

Of that percent 85 per cent were cars shipped to the United States.

With GM-Holden confirmed as one of the ‘good GM’ corporate entities, Reuss reaffirmed the move to actively seeking new markets for locally built Holdens, including possibly the Commodore and Statesman.

An export hatch version of Holden's new Cruze four-cylinder could also be on the cards when local manufacturing starts in Adelaide early next year.

Reuss was reluctant to talk about specific markets but confirmed the company is "going to recoup our export losses with new programs". GM-Holden had expected to export 30,000 Pontiac G8s to the US when the deal was announced in 2007.

However, sales fell well short of forecasts. At the end of last year only half of the 24,000 exported cars were sold. Over the past 18 months Holden has reduced its workforce and production capacity in response to the downturn in car sales.

GM-Holden current builds 310 cars a day at its Elizabeth plant in Adelaide, about 66,000 vehicles a year, which will increase when the new small car comes on line. The factory has a capacity of about 100,000 vehicles a year. Apart from that there are another 2500 V6 engines out of Melbourne that will be allocated to Mexico to go in the Cadillac SRX.