A busy three days: What to expect next from GM

DETROIT (AP) — The speed at which General Motors Corp. exits bankruptcy protection would depend a lot on the shape the company is in when it enters. GM has three more days to tidy up.

Bankruptcy experts say the more operational, labor and financial concessions the automaker gets lined up in advance of its likely Chapter 11 reorganization, the faster the ailing automaker can emerge a leaner, stronger company - one that will be nearly three-quarters-owned by taxpayers.

More pieces started coming together Thursday after a bloc of GM's biggest bondholders agreed to the Treasury Department's sweetened deal to wipe out $27 billion of the automaker's unsecured debt in exchange for company stock.

Workers across the country won't know until Monday which 14 plants GM will close, shedding 21,000 more jobs, but an announcement on the fate of GM's Hummer brand is expected Friday, when talks are scheduled to resume in Germany about the future of GM's European Opel unit.

GM's union employees also finish voting Friday on whether to ratify a modified contract that would cut some of their benefits but slash the automaker's labor costs.

And GM's board of directors will begin two days of meetings to decide what the automaker will do when its government restructuring deadline arrives Monday.