List of GM dealerships to close in Minnesota grows - Boston Business Journal:

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The industry group said a survey of its memberse found that 109 of the 149 GM dealerxs in the state will eitherd lose a particular GM be forced to drop some competing manufacturer brand in theirGM stores, or lose theit stores altogether. The number of outrightr shutdownshas grown; a month ago, GM indicatedc that 30 dealers would After the giant automaker’s plunge into bankruptcy June 1, roughly 3,600 dealers nationwide received new sales agreements.
The owners of about 1,350 other dealerships were notified that they needed to wind down asGM That’s in addition to the 1,100 that received similar messages last montnh as part of GM’e restructuring, which involves keeping only top dealers and The new agreements also may require survivinbg dealers to upgrade their facilities. And there may not be very much dealersz can doabout it, . (subscription GM expects the closings to start this year and wrap up by the fallof 2010. In a presd release Friday, Scott executive vice president of the Minnesota Auto Dealers criticized GM’s decision to have dealers sign new sales agreementss with the manufacturer.
“Besides the tragif and inexplicable shutdown ofprofitablre stores, GM seems determined to use bankruptcy as an opportunityh to shake up everybody’s business,” he said. “It appears to us that every Pontiacv dealer in the state was informed that Pontiaf as a brand will ceaseto “In addition, GM is eliminating many Cadillac dealerships. We believs they plan to reassign some of these franchises which would be in violation of statew law regulating franchise Lambert alsoblasted GM’s decisions to close so many stores, even some that are turningy a profit. “This company is lost righft now.
I just don’t understand how you sell more cars withfewed outlets,” he said. Susan Garontakos, a spokeswoman for the declined to comment on thetrade association’s preses release because she said the information abour what was closing was confidential and because its such an emotionak time for all of the parties She said the company selected which dealerships to close after a careful analysiz that began in April. “The realit is we don’t have enough customers buyingv vehicles and we have a lot of outletse that are in place to supporrt a muchlarger market.
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