GM set to announce new viability plan

General Motors Corp chief executive Fritz Henderson is expected to announce revisions to the auto maker's viability plan on Monday, as the company readies a debt swap offer for unsecured bondholders.

Henderson and other top executives are expected to disclose moves to accelerate cost-cutting, including further changes to GM's brands and details of plans to close more factories.

The company faces a 1 June deadline to restructure or file for bankruptcy after the Obama administration shot down the company's 17 February viability plan as insufficient. GM has since been racing to cut "deeper and faster" deals with bond holders and the United Auto Workers to slash the company's debt.

GM owes $27 billion in unsecured debt; and it owes the UAW $20 billion for a union-run trust fund to cover retiree medical care.

The company is surviving on $15.5 billion in federal loans, after disclosing late last year that it could no longer survive on its own after years of losses and economic turmoil that sent auto sales skidding and cut off access to credit.

GM has been aiming to launch the debt swap by Monday, so that it would be completed by 1 June, when a $1 billion debt payment becomes due. GM last week said it didn't plan on making the payment. If the debt exchange is not complete by then, the company would be in Chapter 11, chief financial officer Ray Young told the Wall Street Journal last week.

Henderson will be joined on Monday at 9 am by Young; Troy Clarke, group vice president and president, GM North America; and Mark LaNeve, GM vice president, vehicles sales, servicing and marketing.