General Motors’ new CEO Ed Whitacre said he believes the company will return to profitability in 2010.

Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Whitacre, who assumed the top job on Dec. 1, gave the most bullish forecast yet for a turnaround in the company’s financial performance. The company has lost money every year since 2005 and was forced by the government to file for bankruptcy last year.

Asked if GM would be profitable this year, Whitacre said, “I’m hoping so. My prediction is we will be.”

Still, Whitacre cited uncertainty about the strength of the economic recovery and the battle to lure back customers who have soured on GM. “Do we have obstacles in our way? Of course we do,” he said.

While rivals Ford Motor Co (F, Fortune 500). and Toyota Motor (TM) posted a profit in the third quarter of 2009, GM lost $1.2 billion.

But GM has said its financial conditions have improved enough in the past few months that it has already started to pay back the $6.7 billion loan it received from the Treasury Department as it exited bankruptcy. GM expects to complete payments by June. That loan is only a fraction of the $50 billion in help the company received from Treasury, however.

Whitacre added that GM hoped to return to profitability by focusing on sales growth as opposed to just slashing expenses.

“You can always take out more cost, but we are focused on the revenue side if you want to prioritize it,” Whitacre said.

He said the company is projecting an end to its long string of market share losses in the U.S. this year. GM has not had an increase in market share since 2002 and its market share has plunged from 44% in 1980 to under 20% last year.

Whitacre would not divulge the company’s market share target in 2010 will be but when asked if it was higher, he responded “Of course.”

GM is now privately held, with the Treasury Department holding 61% of shares and the United Auto Workers union and the company’s former bondholders holding most of the remaining shares. The company will need to go public again before taxpayers can start getting most of the money back.

Whitacre said he doesn’t think that it is necessary for GM to be profitable again before an initial public offering, although he acknowledged it would be helpful. He repeated earlier statements that the company will not be ready to go public until the second half of this year at the earliest, and added he feels no pressure to do so this year.

“We have to show our financial viability first. We have to get everything pretty well set up. People have to see us perform,” he said.

In other news, Whitacre said he anticipates “hundreds” of GM dealers who the company had planned to shed in the coming year would be retained by GM as part of a review process mandated by recently passed legislation.

During its bankruptcy, GM identified more than 1,000 U.S. dealers out of its base of 6,000 that it wanted to terminate, along with hundreds of other dealers who will be cut lose as the company discontinues its Saturn and Pontiac brands and sells or closes Saab and Hummer. To top of page

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Rick Wagoner, late of General Motors, never saw the axe coming, according to Reuters.

When he arrived at the Treasury Department for a meeting on March 27 with Obama administration’s autos task force, he was a 32-year GM veteran and a chief executive carrying the weight of the company’s wrenching restructuring on his 6-foot-4 frame. Pressure for him to quit last fall when he first approached Washington for a bailout had faded.

But Wagoner’s plan for a GM turnaround and a US$16 billion bailout was rejected in the meeting and the company where he spent his entire professional life fell off his shoulders.

“In the course of that meeting, they requested that I step aside as CEO of GM, and so I have,” Wagoner said in a message posted on the automaker’s Website early March 30.

A majority of GM’s board will also be replaced.

Wagoner stepped into the afternoon air jobless.

He could not be reached Monday for further comment.

Wagoner has become the most-recognizable casualty of a once vaunted industry brought to its knees by a confluence of disastrous circumstances that coincided with the later years of his tenure. Some of the wreckage was out of Detroit’s control, but some of it — as President Barack Obama has said — was self inflicted.

“Yes, we were surprised,” Fritz Henderson, Wagoner’s former top deputy and now his replacement, said of the task force rejection of the company’s plan that he helped construct.

Henderson said emotions for many people in the GM community over Wagoner’s ouster has ranged from shock to sadness to pride.

“He was asked to step aside and he did because he felt that was one of the requirements in order to move forward,” Henderson said in a conference call with reporters.

“I think the organization is quite sad about that but our job is to move forward and get the job done,” Henderson added.

Obama last week cited years of corporate mismanagement as a factor for the U.S. auto industry’s decline. Wagoner presided over GM’s rapid deterioration in the past five years.

While the remark raised few eyebrows and some references were made to the entrenched Wagoner, many industry insiders believed he had begun to mute critics and was moving GM in a new direction.

At the very least, he was not resisting change.

“This is not meant as a condemnation of Mr. Wagoner, who has devoted his life to this company,” Obama said in a speech laying out an restructuring strategy he promises to aggressively pursue.

“It’s a recognition that it will take a new vision and new direction to create the GM of the future,” Obama said.

Lawmakers who spoke with Obama said he was “matter-of-fact” about the decision to seek Wagoner’s resignation.

“The president said he had decided to do that. He wasn’t asking for opinions,” said U.S. Sen Carl Levin, a Michigan democrat. “There wasn’t much point in arguing whether it was fair or unfair, wise or unwise.”

Wagoner’s counterparts at Chrysler, Bob Nardelli, and Ford Motor, Alan Mulally, are relatively new to their jobs and both recruited from other industries.

“We are left to look back and say that Wagoner’s appointment as both chairman and CEO in 2003 was little more than an act to ensure the dynasty of GM boardroom arrogance and failure continued,” said Howard Wheeldon, senior strategist at brokerage BGC Partners.

Wheeldon said Wagoner’s departure had been all but inevitable since the automaker sought government funds. At the time of the company’s US$13.4 billion bailout last fall, Sen Christopher Dodd, chairman of a committee overseeing corporate rescue funds, had publicly called for Wagoner to step down. – Reuters

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Automaker Peugeot has fired its chief executive, replacing Christian Streiff with Philippe Varin, currently the CEO at Corus, an Anglo-Dutch steelmaker.
Peugeot is Europe’s second biggest carmaker

“Given the extraordinary difficulties currently faced by the automotive industry, the Supervisory Board decided unanimously that a change in the senior leadership position was necessary,” said Thierry Peugeot, chairman of the PSA Peugeot Citroen supervisory board Sunday.

“I am confident that under the leadership of Philippe Varin, the Group will be able, with all the teams, to unlock its potential.”

Varin will officially take over Peugeot’s top post on June 1, but will begin “familiarizing himself” with operations starting next month.

Roland Vardanega, a member of the managing board, will act as interim chairman until Varin assumes his new job.

Peugeot, Europe’s second biggest automaker, posted a loss of €343 million, or $456 million, in 2008 and also expects to lose money in 2009.

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