Fritz Henderson, GM’s president and chief operating officer, said without the second installment of $5.4 billion, the company would run out of cash long before March 31.
GM received $4 billion late last year and was to get $5.4 billion Jan. 16 and another $4 billion on Feb. 17, the day it is to submit its plan to show the government how it will become viable.
Henderson told the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit that the money is critically needed to pay its bills. He attributed the delay in receiving the second installment to the Treasury Department’s workload and the change in administrations.
“If we don’t get our second installment of the funding we’ll run out of cash, it’s that’s simple,” he said. “We’ve been finalizing what we need to do. We anticipate receiving it. But it’s critical that we receive it.”
Henderson also disagreed with United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger who said on Monday that that a mid-February deadline for General Motors and Chrysler to complete their restructuring plans may be “almost unattainable” and that the automakers may have been set up to fail.
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