GM heads back to market

GM heads back to market

We were not proponents of the government forcing General Motors into bankruptcy. At a time when hundreds of billions of dollars were being funneled to Wall Street investment firms and banks, what General Motors needed to stay afloat was relatively modest.

And when President Barack Obama made it clear that GM’s filing for bankruptcy was a condition of government help, we cried foul. We were skeptical of the claim that the government’s plan would result in an accelerated reorganization that would allow GM to get into and out of bankruptcy quickly.

No one will ever know if there could have been a better way of saving GM, an American manufacturing icon. But there’s now clear evidence that the road taken has led GM back to profitability in better time than we would have predicted.

There was pain

Certainly there were losers, not the least of whom were the holders of the old GM’s common stock. Depending on when those investors bought, they got pennies on the dollar when they sold. And hundreds of thousands of current and retired employees took hits of varying sizes — in compensation, in pensions and in health coverage.

But what has emerged is a company that has been able to pursue the exciting new products that it had on the drawing boards, including the Chevrolet Cruze being produced at the Lordstown plant.

The company reported its second consecutive quarterly profit — $1.3 billion — and has filed with regulators to return to the stock market.

Sale of the company to private investors will allow GM to repay a government that acted in the best interests of the company and the nation, and it will open a new chapter in the company’s history.