Followup: Ex-car czar Rattner to speak in Detroit after all?

Filed under: Government/Legal , Celebrities Let’s try this again. After having his invitation to speak at the Detroit Economic Club rescinded last month, Steven Rattner , the former auto advisor to the Obama Administration, will get another chance to speak to Detroit. The Automotive Press Association is now hosting a lunch where Rattner will speak with members of the media on November 15, just three days before General Motors launches its IPO . The APA says that Rattner generated quite a bit of automotive news over the past year, and that it only makes sense for the organization to give him a chance to speak directly to local news outlets

Read the rest here:
Followup: Ex-car czar Rattner to speak in Detroit after all?

Ford’s Mulally beats the tech gurus in online voting for Businessperson of the Year

Filed under: Etc. , Ford If you saw the recent boring-story-brilliantly-told called The Social Network , you might have come away with the notion that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg deserves the Businessperson of the Year title. The movie’s been a box-office smash, but evidently the voting public felt otherwise, electing Ford CEO Alan Mulally as their popular choice. The online Reader’s Choice contest is one of several criteria which Fortune magazine uses to select their honoree, and works in a playoff-like bracketed run-off

Excerpt from:
Ford’s Mulally beats the tech gurus in online voting for Businessperson of the Year

Report: Ex-car czar Rattner nears SEC settlement

Filed under: Government/Legal According to Reuters , the Securities and Exchange Commission is set to settle with the former head of the Obama Administration’s auto task force, Steven Rattner . Earlier this year, the SEC charged Rattner with participating in a pay-to-play pension program, but the commission is expected to announce today that the former car czar has agreed to pay a fine of more than $5 million and accept a multi-year ban from the securities industry. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has led an investigation into fraud surrounding the state’s $132 billion pension fund that has resulted in seven guilty pleas.

Read more from the original source:
Report: Ex-car czar Rattner nears SEC settlement

Report: Rattner bio reveals Obama Administration wanted Ghosn to run GM

Filed under: Government/Legal , GM , Celebrities Steven Rattner , former automotive adviser to President Barack Obama, has just written a juicy account of last year’s automotive bailout, complete with insights on the coming and goings of CEOs, courting foreign saviors and the General Motors plan to abandon its Renaissance Center headquarters. In his book, ” Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry, ” Rattner says that GM wanted to walk away from its expensive towers in downtown Detroit and move to Warren, MI. While the move would have likely saved the company plenty of money and lent the impression of a hands-on management approach, the Obama administration apparently refused to allow the move, saying that it would cause a double-digit drop in property values in the area. There’s also the fact that GM pays around $20 million in taxes to Detroit per year

Go here to read the rest:
Report: Rattner bio reveals Obama Administration wanted Ghosn to run GM

Report: GM falls out of Fortune 500′s top ten for first time in over a century

Filed under: Ford , GM , Earnings/Financials By nearly all accounts, things are starting to look up at General Motors . The company has shed dead weight, cut down its debt and slimmed its dealer network in order to be a more healthy business, but those moves have officially knocked The General from the top 10 of Fortune Magazine’s fabled 500 list. It’s the first time in 101 years GM hasn’t been one of the top 10 businesses on the list. Fortune says that because of last year’s bailout and massive plant closings and layoffs, the carmaker now holds the 15th slot among the heavy-hitters of the business world.

Continue reading here:
Report: GM falls out of Fortune 500′s top ten for first time in over a century

Toyota makes top 10 of World’s Most Admired Companies list

Filed under: Recalls , Safety , Toyota Historically, Toyota has been the automaker with the Midas touch… everything it did seemed to turn to gold. But, in light of Toyota’s recent safety and recall woes , if you were compiling a short list of companies that you admire today – as in right now – would the Big Red T make the cut?

View original post here:
Toyota makes top 10 of World’s Most Admired Companies list