General Motors Co.’s new CEO, Daniel Akerson, held a 45-minute town hall meeting, originating in Detroit and webcast worldwide to the automaker’s facilities, urging employees to go on the offense, The Detroit News reported.

Sitting alongside the company’s chairman and Akerson’s predecessor as CEO, Edward Whitacre Jr., the new GM boss answered employees’ questions, but avoided any talk of the company’s planned public stock offering this fall — under the watchful eye of the company’s top lawyer.

“We need to be on the attack,” Akerson said, according to two employees who watched the event on an internal telecast.

Akerson said the company has improved its balance sheet since its 2009 bankruptcy filing, but now needs to do more.

“The only way to become a great company is to get better,” he said.

The two executives sat in high-backed chairs in the discussion, which was held at the company’s Renaissance Center headquarters in Detroit. It was moderated by Selim Bingol, the company’s chief spokesman.

Akerson, a GM director since July 2009, took over from Whitacre Sept. 1. Whitacre will stay on as chairman until Dec. 31, when Akerson will assume that title as well.

Akerson left private equity firm Carlyle Group as a managing director last month.

He told the GM employees that he helped manage a $167 billion portfolio of investments at Carlyle. Those investments include Allison Transmission, Hertz and Dunkin’ Donuts.

GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson confirmed the essence of Akerson’s comments and that the meeting took place.

“The purpose was to introduce Dan to employees … to have him talk about who he is and who he’ll be as a leader,” Wilkinson said.

He called it “an opportunity (for Akerson) to connect with employees and get a sense of him as a person,” and said the CEO’s message was that the company “is back, the ship’s been righted … and now it’s time for GM to compete.”

The Akerson-Whitacre employee town hall came on an important day in the life of GM’s product line.

In Lordstown, Ohio this morning, the first Chevrolet Cruze compact car rolled off the assembly line.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland pressed an inked thumbprint against the roofline of a red Cruze, signifying that the all-new compact was a world-class vehicle produced in the state he leads.

Strickland and GM North America President Mark Reuss drove the red Cruze off the end of the assembly line, followed by white and blue models driven by members of the Cruze launch team that includes United Auto Workers locals 1112 and 1714.

“The rebirth of the U.S. economy starts in Lordstown, Ohio with the Chevrolet Cruze,” Reuss told a crowd of about 2,000 plant workers and several hundred community members who turned out to see the ceremonial start of production. “The Cruze is the finest compact car.”

General Motors plans to start trading shares again on Nov. 18, timing that allows the company one more quarter of earnings to build its case to investors, a firm that researches initial public offerings told The Associated Press.

Scott Sweet, the managing partner of IPO Boutique, said GM plans to price the shares on Nov. 17 and begin selling them the next day. He said the automaker wants to start a two-week a road show to drum up investor interest on Nov. 3, the day after the midterm congressional elections.

It’s unclear if the IPO dates have been finalized. Two people with knowledge of the process say the automaker’s board hasn’t approved a date for the IPO but is expected to meet next week to discuss the issue. GM is in a “quiet period” before an IPO, so no one is authorized to discuss the process publicly.

The company filed paperwork for an initial public offering with federal regulators last month. GM spokeswoman Renee Rashid-Merem declined to comment Thursday on the timing of the IPO.

Sweet said his information comes from multiple people on Wall Street but declined to name them. He says the company hasn’t yet established a price for the shares, but hopes to raise $15 to $20 billion with the initial public offering.

The timing could disappoint some Democrats who supported the government’s $50 billion bailout of GM last year and wanted to point to a successful IPO before the elections. But one more quarter of earnings could help the automaker establish that it is healthy and capable of making sustained profits. GM earned $2.2 billion in the first half of 2010 despite depressed U.S. auto sales, but it lost $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter of last year.

GM also hopes the U.S. auto market sees some modest improvement this fall. On Wednesday it said its U.S. sales fell 5 percent from July and 11 percent from last August, when they were boosted by the Cash for Clunkers program.

Dan Akerson, who became GM’s CEO on Wednesday, didn’t mention the IPO in his first e-mail to employees Thursday. Akerson wished employees a happy Labor Day weekend and said he has already met with United Auto Workers President Bob King. Akerson said he is “from a union family” and believes “very deeply” in working together with the union.

“There will always be more hard work ahead of us, but because of your dedication, I have great optimism for GM’s future,” Akerson said in the e-mail obtained by The Associated Press.

Akerson took over from Ed Whitacre, who has resigned as CEO but will remain chairman of GM through the end of this year. Both men are former telecommunications executives appointed to GM’s board by the federal government.

WASHINGTON – Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Co. today announced recalls of 1.3 million vehicles from the 2005-2008 model years following complaints of engine stalling, Automotive News reported.

Toyota issued a recall of 1.1 million Corolla and Corolla Matrix vehicles after more than 1,000 complaints.

GM will recall 200,000 Pontiac Vibes, including 162,000 in the United States, after a “handful” of complaints, said GM spokesman Alan Adler.

The Vibe, a sister vehicle for the Matrix, was produced as part of the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. joint venture between the two companies in California that is now defunct.

Toyota said it was addressing some engine control modules — the computer that controls the engine — that may have been improperly made.

Cracks may develop at solder points or on the electronic component used to protect circuits against excessive voltage — in some cases stopping the engine while the vehicle is being driven, the statement said.

The announcement today raises Toyota recalls since November 2009 to about 12.3 million vehicles worldwide and 10.5 million in the United States, most for sudden acceleration, Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons said.

The supplier of the modules at issue in today’s recall was Delphi Corp., a Delphi spokesman said.

“The ECM’s supplied to Toyota were designed and validated in accordance with specifications provided to us by Toyota,” said Delphi spokesman Lindsey Williams. “We continue to work collaboratively with Toyota and support them in this recall campaign.”

All the affected Toyota vehicles were sold in North America.

“Our goal is to help ensure that Toyota drivers are completely confident in the safety and reliability of their vehicles,” Steve St. Angelo, Toyota’s chief quality officer for North America, said in a prepared statement.

Earlier this week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was upgrading its investigation of the Corollas.

Toyota’s popular Corolla model also faces other regulatory concerns. Since February, NHTSA has been investigating dozens of complaints of steering problems with the Corollas from model years 2009 and 2010.

DETROIT – General Motors Co. is touting its global reach to potential investors.

In its filing last week for an initial public offering of stock, the carmaker said that by 2014, more than half of its vehicles will be built off common global platforms compared with 17 percent today, Automotive News reported.

The increased use of common designs and standard vehicle parts is expected to save GM big money on engineering and manufacturing. The company’s budget this year is $13 billion for engineering and capital expenditures, the IPO filing said.

GM also noted that its factory footprint is shifting to emerging nations. Today, 43 percent of GM’s vehicles are built in low-cost countries, where GM pays workers less than $15 an hour for wages and benefits combined. Those countries include China and Mexico.

An additional 17 percent of GM vehicles are built in so-called medium-cost countries, such as South Korea and Brazil. Wages and benefits combined for those GM workers total between $15 and $30 an hour.

GM’s UAW work force in the United States totals about 52,000. Those workers earn about $55 an hour with wages and benefits combined.

GM’s progression to common vehicle platforms will quicken with its product cadence. The IPO reports that the carmaker will launch 19 vehicles in North America between 2010 and 2012 and 27 vehicles in 2013 and 2014.

The move to common vehicle platforms will help GM optimize its manufacturing flexibility to produce vehicles anywhere in the world without requiring significant additional capital investment.

For example, GM said, global architecture allowed the carmaker to start initial production of the U.S.-market Buick Regal 11 months ahead of schedule by shifting production temporarily from North America to its plant in Ruesselsheim, Germany.

Vice President Joe Biden reiterated Monday that the U.S. government may maintain an ownership stake in General Motors Co. beyond this year, as the automaker prepares to return to the stock markets as early as this fall, reported The Wall Street Journal.

“I don’t know if you get totally out of GM” by the end of this year, Biden told reporters during a tour of Chrysler Group LLC’s Toledo, Ohio, assembly plant, where the Jeep Wrangler is made. “I think that IPO will be successful.”

Biden added that the car industry turnaround has been “very successful” under the Obama administration.

The U.S. Treasury could sell some of its 61 percent ownership stake in GM when the company undergoes an initial public stock offering later this year, but just how much it will sell remains uncertain. U.S. officials have said details on timing and the number of shares the Treasury will sell will be determined largely by market conditions.

GM last week submitted paperwork to the Securities and Exchange Commission seeking approval to conduct an IPO and return to being a publicly traded entity. The company reported a second-quarter profit of $1.3 billion.

GM, along with Chrysler, received billions of dollars in government loans to keep their operations running last year. The Obama administration also helped guide both GM and Chrysler through expedited bankruptcies last year.

Chrysler’s assets were merged with Fiat SpA while GM re-emerged as a stand-alone company.

Chrysler has no immediate plans to conduct an IPO. The auto maker reported a second-quarter loss of $172 million and an operating profit of $183 million.

DETROIT – General Motors Co.’s 734-page filing to go public featured standard warnings to investors about the risks facing the automaker — including a weak sales outlook, regulatory changes, oil price volatility and supply base stability.

But some of the risks GM is required to disclose to investors are a little more telling about where the automaker stands a year after bankruptcy, Automotive News reported.

They include less than robust internal financial controls, uncompetitive pay for senior management as a result of caps imposed by GM’s government bailout, and the harm that GM’s shrinking dealer body could do to U.S. sales and market share.

At the end of June, there were about 5,200 GM dealers in the United States, compared with about 5,600 at the end of 2009.

The automaker initially wanted to reduce the number of dealerships by about 3,600 to 4,000 over the long term. In 2009, GM terminated franchise agreements with more than 2,000 dealers. But under a new federal law, GM agreed to reinstate more than 700 of them. Some dealers also have been reinstated through a federally mandated arbitration process.

The company now intends to reduce the number of U.S. dealers to about 4,500 by the end of 2010.

“We anticipate that this reduction in retail outlets, brands and dealers will result in cost savings over time, but there is no assurance that we would realize the savings expected,” GM said in the prospectus. “Based on our experience and the experiences of other companies that have eliminated brands, models and/or dealers, we believe that our market share could decline because of these reductions.”

In the summer of 2009, former GM CEO Fritz Henderson told Congress that GM would save about $2.5 billion per year by cutting 2,500 dealerships. But dealers argued that 80 percent of those savings were tied to the cost of selling vehicles, not from money spent on the dealership network.

The GM filing also cites recent management changes atop the company — the primary reason the filing was delayed by at least three days — as a major risk.

GM abruptly announced last week that Daniel Akerson, a GM director since July 2009, will succeed Ed Whitacre as CEO on Sept. 1 and as chairman by year end.

GM’s CFO, Chris Liddell, joined the automaker on Jan. 1.

Akerson, a former telecommunications executive and most recently a senior executive at The Carlyle Group, and Liddell, formerly of Microsoft Corp., have no automotive experience.

“The ability of our new executive management team to quickly learn the automotive industry and lead our company will be critical to our ability to succeed,” GM told potential investors in the filing.

“Within the past year, we have substantially changed our executive management team. We have also promoted from within GM many new senior officers. It is important to our success that the new members of the executive management team quickly understand the automotive industry and that our senior officers quickly adapt and excel in their new senior management roles.”

If they are unable to do so and as a result are unable to provide effective guidance and leadership, GM said, its business and financial results could be materially and adversely affected.

NEW YORK – General Motors Co. will have to convince investors to look past declining market share, less than a year of profitability and management new to the auto industry to buy shares in its initial public offering, Bloomberg reported.

GM, 61 percent owned by the U.S., said its North America market share may fall by 2014, while the company has forecast earnings growth will slow in the second half of the year after a two-quarter return to profitability.

The automaker must have a market capitalization of $69.4 billion after the IPO for the government to be able to break even on its investment, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

GM’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission laid out the challenges the company will face generating enough investor demand to complete an offering that people familiar with the plan have said may be as large as $16 billion.

“It will be a tough sell because the company has only posted two quarterly profits and the CEO is stepping down,” said Peter Jankovskis, who oversees $2.3 billion as co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments in Lisle, Illi. “Those aren’t the normal types of things associated with an IPO that’s going to be highly subscribed.”

The company must be worth even more than the $69.4 billion for the U.S. to fully recover its investment if the bondholders and the UAW exercise warrants and dilute the government’s stake, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s more than three times the value of GM’s equity at the end of the last bull market in U.S. stocks and 65 percent higher than Ford Motor Co.’s market capitalization of $42 billion.

GM posted profit of $865 million in the first quarter and $1.3 billion in the second quarter. Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said last week he expected earnings to moderate in the second half, without giving a specific target.

Recent economic reports have signaled the U.S.’s recovery from the longest recession since the Great Depression is deteriorating. Unemployment claims unexpectedly rose in the first week of August and sales at retailers increased less than forecast last month, reports showed last week.

The Federal Reserve said Aug. 10 that the pace of recovery will probably be “more modest” than forecast.

“This is going to be harder than it would have been if the economy and the auto market were in better shape,” said Joe Phillippi, principal of AutoTrends Inc., a consulting firm in Short Hills, N.J. “Every week, people are ratcheting down their outlook for the economy and that will affect the price of this deal.”

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – General Motors Co.’s U.S. dealers are in the midst of the largest dealership facilities makeover in the company’s history, CEO Ed Whitacre told the CAR Management Briefing Seminars.

He said 300 dealerships have been upgraded this year and 1,000 will have completed upgrades by year end, Automotive News reported.

He also said GM will have 4,500 U.S. dealerships as of Nov. 1, having concluded its arbitration with ousted stores.

In a statement, GM said it arbitrated with 62 U.S. dealerships. GM won 39 of the cases and dealerships won 23, said GM spokeswoman Ryndee Carney.

Whitacre said the dealership body will be about 25 percent smaller than before GM’s bankruptcy last year. But it is the right size with the right dealerships for the four brands that GM now builds, he said.

His comments echoed dealership census projections released by GM in June. At the time, GM North America President Mark Reuss predicted GM would finish the year with between 4,500 and 5,000 U.S. dealerships. A GM spokesman later said the figure would be closer to 4,500 than 5,000.

In wide-ranging remarks, Whitacre also gave credit to former GM executives Rick Wagoner, Bob Lutz and Fritz Henderson for leaving good vehicles in the pipeline.

Whitacre said GM’s vehicle lineup is driving sales and earnings increases.

He said the Chevrolet Cruze compact, which is rated 40 mpg on the highway, is the kind of breakthrough vehicle that GM is relying on for its future. The Cruze is due in showrooms in September.

Whitacre, who was the longtime chief of AT&T, said GM has such products to bring to market today because of the vision and work of his predecessors, including Wagoner, Henderson and Lutz.

He said he learned upon taking the helm of GM in December 2009 that “it takes years to bring a vehicle to market.”

Whitacre said GM can only succeed by keeping its sole focus on designing, building and selling the world’s best vehicles.

“That’s all we do,” he said.

WASHINGTON – General Motors Co. prevailed in 39 of its arbitration cases and lost 23 to rejected dealerships as it scales down to about 4,500 stores by November, GM spokeswoman Ryndee Carney said.

GM announced final results of a process that began with enactment of a federal arbitration law in December and ended with final decisions handed down last month on claims by dealers tagged for elimination during the company’s restructuring, reported Automotive News.

Most of the 1,176 arbitration claims filed in January never reached a decision, the company said in a statement. GM offered letters of intent that spelled out conditions for reinstatement to 702 dealerships or 60 percent of those that filed claims.

With 23 dealerships prevailing in arbitration, GM offered letters of intent to a total of 725 stores, Carney said in an interview. That’s 62 percent of the dealerships filing claims.

Most if not all recipients of letters of intent have signed them, Carney said. These stores can start selling cars as soon as they meet the conditions in the letters.

“A strong, profitable dealer network selling and servicing the world’s best cars and trucks is a genuine market advantage,” GM North America President Mark Reuss said in the statement.

GM also said today that it had reached 408 individual resolutions with dealers that filed arbitration claims.

These resolutions consist of settlements, an undisclosed number of dealership continuations that will receive letters of intent, and claim withdrawals and dismissals, Carney said.

Most of the 408 resolutions involve dealer terminations, GM said.

Still, dealer lawyers have said GM paid cash settlements in dozens of these cases — sometimes as much as several million dollars.

During the summer of 2009, GM notified 2,064 dealerships of plans to terminate at least one of their franchises by October 2010. GM’s goal was to pare its dealer network from 6,049 stores to about 3,600.

That network is now likely to be about 25 percent larger than originally planned, with about 900 more stores — making a total of about 4,500.

While GM declined to give a dealership breakdown, Carney did provide a breakdown by franchise for the new network.

In November, there will be about 3,100 Chevrolet franchises, 2,100 Buick franchises, 1,750 GMC franchises and 925 Cadillac franchises, she said.

About 1,000 of the continuing stores are scheduled for “a major facilities upgrade” by the end of this year, the statement said. Included in the upgrades will be work areas with phone and laptop computer outlets, Wi-Fi and a cafe area with refreshments.

General Motors Co.’s acquisition of subprime lender AmeriCredit Corp. for $3.5 billion later this year could be the first step toward creating a full-blown captive finance company, Automotive News reported.

AmeriCredit lacks the capital of other automakers’ finance arms, and it’s primarily a used-vehicle lender serving borrowers with risky credit. But GM praised its strong management and staying power, calling AmeriCredit the “core” of GM’s in-house finance operation.

GM now has Ally Financial Inc., formerly GMAC Financial Services, for floorplanning and most prime financing and AmeriCredit for some leasing and to buy deeper to serve customers with lower credit scores. This gives GM dealers nearly the coverage that Ford Motor Co. dealers get from Ford Motor Credit Co.

The AmeriCredit acquisition will allow GM to sell more vehicles in North America — perhaps as many as 20 percent more, some analysts say — because dealers say Ally hasn’t been buying very deep.

The new finance arm will improve GM’s “competitiveness in auto finance offerings,” CEO Ed Whitacre said in a conference call announcing the purchase last week. The move also strengthens GM’s position to launch an initial public offering.

The Reuters news agency reported last week that GM plans to file its registration for an IPO during the week of Aug. 16, just after the date that GM is expected to announce second-quarter results.

Besides possibly allowing GM to sell to more people, a captive can generate its own profits. For example, Ford Credit reported second-quarter pretax operating profits of $888 million.

GM’s deal with AmeriCredit came as Ford Credit ran into a temporary financing roadblock.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Ford captive pulled back a scheduled sale of bonds backed by auto loans in the wake of financial reforms signed into law last week by President Barack Obama.

In a statement, Ford Credit declined to comment.

Such asset-backed bonds, used to raise funds for future lending, are legally required to have credit ratings attached. But rating agencies — including Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch — now refuse to allow their ratings to be published, although they continue to make ratings as part of the bond offering. The agencies are reacting to new regulations that make it easier for investors to sue them.

The issue had threatened to freeze such bond sales. But on Friday, July 23, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a “no action” letter allowing asset-backed bond sales without credit ratings for six months. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association credited the move with “avoiding the potential for negative impact on the availability of financing.”

For now, the planned acquisition of AmeriCredit leaves GM’s partnership with Ally intact, assuring a continuation of floorplan financing for GM dealerships.