General Motors Corp

General Motors Corp. said it would offer buyers as much as $1,000 per vehicle on older cars and trucks in U.S. dealer inventories.

A state agency that hands out training funds rejected a $2-million reimbursement request Friday from what was California's last auto manufacturing plant, the New United Motors Manufacturing Inc. Scarce state funds would be better spent on sharpening the skills of workers at companies that are still doing business and creating new jobs here, six members of the California Employment Training Panel said in a statement before voting unanimously to...

* General Motors Corp. will close its Mesa, Ariz., proving ground by the end of 2002 and build a new one in central Mexico, where the world's largest auto maker can test vehicles in hotter weather during the winter. GM will offer transfers, separation buyouts or early retirements to its 400 employees at the Mesa center and phase out about 600 contract jobs.

General Motors Co. named Chairman Edward E. Whitacre Jr. its chief executive Monday, consolidating its two top positions in a wiry 68-year-old Texan known for his deal making in the telecommunications industry. The automaker also said it would pay down a $6.7-billion loan from the government earlier than planned. GM said it would repay $5.7 billion in government bailout money by June 30. The payment follows $1 billion that GM repaid last month. The loan was not due to be repaid until 2015.

5 GM Assembly Plants Hobbled: Work has resumed at the Buick City complex, where 11,500 employees ended a four-day strike Saturday by approving a deal under which General Motors Corp. will hire several hundred new workers. But the interruption in parts shipments from Flint, Mich., continued to hamstring some GM operations, and five assembly plants were shut down.

General Motors' chief executive says that the sales network isn't shrinking fast enough and that the automaker wants to step up dealer consolidations. Rick Wagoner says GM aims to combine Pontiac, Buick and GMC dealerships, the Detroit News reported. General Motors Corp. reduced its dealer network by about 7%, to 14,118, from 2005 to 2007.

* General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. advertiser, said it was putting its media-planning accounts up for bid. GM has narrowed the field to three firms: Interpublic Group of Cos., BCom3 Group's Starcom MediaVest Group and Carat North America.

General Motors Co. is offering a $7,000 sales inducement to its dealers for every Saturn and Pontiac vehicle left in inventory as the automaker phases out the two brands. Assuming the cash is passed on to consumers, the move could result in savings for buyers looking to snap up one of the few remaining unsold Pontiacs and Saturns. But the savings might not be as much as one would think. To qualify for the incentive, dealers have to put the vehicles in their rental or service fleet before selling them to consumers.

General Motors Co.'s plans to save Saab by selling it have failed, and the storied Swedish brand will be the latest to hit the scrap pile. The troubled Detroit automaker said Friday that its last-minute negotiations to sell Saab to a Dutch supercar maker, Spyker Cars, fell through because of due diligence issues that could not be resolved. Those talks followed the collapse of a deal to sell Saab to another maker of high-performance cars, Sweden-based Koenigsegg, late last month.

Fourteen days after taking the helm as chief executive of General Motors, Edward E. Whitacre Jr. said the giant automaker, which went through a major bankruptcy restructuring this year, plans to repay loans from the U.S. and Canadian governments by the end of June. In one of his first face-to-face meetings with reporters at the company's headquarters in Detroit, Whitacre talked about a variety of topics, including his visit to an auto plant last week in Flint, Mich., shuffling top managers and the company's strategy of improving its vehicles, sales and brand image.

Three days after the ouster of Chief Executive Fritz Henderson, General Motors Chairman Edward E. Whitacre Jr. announced a deeper management shake-up at the automaker, naming new presidents for the company's North American, European and other international divisions. The moves come as GM attempts an ambitious comeback that began in Bankruptcy Court this spring. The government-owned company has dropped or sought to sell the Pontiac, Saturn, Saab and Hummer brands, closed hundreds of dealerships and laid off thousands of workers.

General Motors Co.'s plan to sell its Saab unit to a specialty Swedish automaker has collapsed, frustrating another attempt by GM to prune its roster of automotive brands and potentially spelling the end of the Saab brand. Koenigsegg Group said Tuesday that it had canceled the proposed acquisition of Saab because of risks created by delays in completing the deal. GM officials said they were "very disappointed" by Koenigsegg's decision. The Swedish carmaker, which makes so-called supercars that can top 200 miles per hour, had joined with Chinese automaker Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. on the deal.

Luxury automaker Fisker Automotive Inc. of Irvine has agreed to buy a closed General Motors assembly plant in Delaware to produce plug-in hybrid electric cars, the company said. Fisker has signed a letter of intent with Motors Liquidation Co., formerly known as General Motors Corp., to buy the Wilmington, Del., plant for $18 million.

At its bankruptcy filing last June, General Motors Corp. announced drastic cutbacks in its domestic and international operations but kept its South American subsidiary off the auction block. In a recent interview at the regional headquarters here of what is now General Motors Co., GM-Mercosur President Jaime Ardila explained why. Simply put, he said GM's Brazil operation, the company's third-largest after those in the U.S. and China, is the company's "most valuable asset" in profitability and growth potential.

NEW YORK -- Dell Inc. said today it has agreed to buy the information technology services company Perot Systems Corp. for about $3.9 billion as it looks to expand beyond the personal computer business. Round Rock, Texas-based Dell said it will offer $30 per share in cash for Perot, which is based in Plano, Texas. That represents a 68 percent premium over Perot's closing share price Friday, and Perot shares shot up almost 66 percent in premarket trading Monday. Dell said Perot, founded by former presidential candidate Ross Perot, will expand the company's IT services offerings for businesses and widen the pool of potential customers for its computers.