So you think that it is odd that an agency providing billions of dollars to bail out a failing company might want the top management changed?
He was replaced as CEO by Fritz Henderson, the company’s vice chairman and chief operating officer. It’s not like he was replaced with a political patronage job. Mr. Henderson, not President Obama then guided the company through it’s recovery.
Please, this really has nothing to do whether it was odd or not, I was simply stating that it was because of the US. Govt that management at GM changed - and I just made that statement to make the point that if the Govt. owns you they control you - hence the connection to Amtrak. This isn’t the appropriate discussion forum to discuss whether what happened with GM was good or bad.
Here are some thoughts about whether what happened to GM was good or bad. See post #11.
Actually, if you look at Amtrak’s audited statements of financial records (available on their website), there are two classes of stock - preferred stock given the government in exchange for the subsidies - that’s owned by the government, but as preferred stock its non-voting. The railroads got common stock - the majority of which is owned by American Premier Underwriters which is what Penn Central changed their name after they became of all things an insurance company. The preferred stock is non-voting. The common stock is voting so effectively the former Penn Central has the ability to block anything which Amtrak’s Board of Directors does.
I could be wrong, but I believe that the stock that the government bought from GM was also non-voting preferred stock - in fact, if I recall correctly that was one of the most criticized aspects of the deal - if a private company bought 60% of a public company, they’d insist on control and get it - the government didn’t.
I’m no expert in corporate governance (did get an A in corporations) but Amtrak is probably doing much better than you’d expect - they couldn’t have done a better job designing a system guaranteed to fail if they