General Motors Corp and the US government finalised plans on Sunday for the battered automaker to reorganise, as a majority of debtholders helped clear the way to a massive bankruptcy filing expected on Monday.
President Barack Obama is expected on Monday to publicly discuss GM''''s next steps as the federal government prepares to assume more than two thirds control of the company in exchange for tens of billions of dollars in assistance.
It would be the largest-ever industrial Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition and the third-largest in US history. It is expected to be filed in New York where rival Chrysler LLC is in the final stages of a court-supervised makeover that includes an alliance with Italy''''s Fiat.
GM has been losing market share since the early 1980s when it commanded 45 percent of the US market. It has been hurt by its reliance on a truck-dominated vehicle line-up and by a deep plunge in demand as credit tightened in 2008.
Since last week, GM has been racing to complete a series of last-minute deals intended to help speed its way through a fast-track bankruptcy that would see it emerge under the majority ownership of the US government.
Those deals have included a new contract for the United Auto Workers union and an agreement to spare GM''''s Opel brand from collapse in a deal brokered by the German government. Bondholders have been one of the last pieces to fall into GM''''s complicated bankruptcy puzzle under the direction of the autos task force appointed by the White House and headed by former investment banker Steve Rattner.
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