GM Korea

GM Korea Company
Native name
 한국지엠주식회사
Formerly called
 National Motors
(1937–1962)
Saenara Motors
(1962–1965)
Shinjin Motors (1965–1972)
General Motors Korea (1972–1976)
Saehan Motors (1976–1983)
Daewoo Motor Corporation (1983–2002)
Subsidiary of General Motors
Industry Automotive
Predecessor Daewoo Motors
Founded 2002
Headquarters Bupyeong, Incheon, South Korea
Area served
 worldwide
Key people
 James Kim, CEO
Minerva Matibag, CFO
Products Automobiles
Production output
 Decrease 782,721 (2013)[1][note 1]
Revenue Decrease ₩12.92 trillion (2014)[2]
Number of employees
 16,919 (2013)[1]
Parent General Motors Investment Pty Ltd. (48.19%)
Subsidiaries GM Vietnam
Uz-DaewooAuto (50%)
Website www.gm-korea.co.kr
GM Korea
Hangul 한국지엠
Hanja 韓國지엠
Revised Romanization Hanguk Ji-em
McCune–Reischauer Hang’uk Chi-em

GM Korea Company[note 2] (Korean: 한국지엠주식회사,[note 3] IPA: [hanɡuːk tɕi em]) is South Korea's third largest automobile manufacturer and a subsidiary of General Motors. GM Korea's roots go back to the former Daewoo which was split from its parent company, Daewoo Group, in 2001. It has five manufacturing facilities in South Korea as well as a vehicle assembly facility in Vietnam. In addition, GM Korea provides region and brand-specific vehicle assembly kits for assembly by GM affiliates in China, the United States, Australia, Germany, India, and Brazil. In 2008, GM Korea built more than 1.9 million vehicles, including CKD products. It now produces vehicles and kits for Chevrolet, Holden, Opel and Buick that are offered in more than 150 markets on six continents. GM Korea also has design, engineering, research & development facilities that are involved in development for various GM products, above all small-size cars.

History

GM Korea's roots go back to the remnants of the Korean War and Shinjin Motors, which launched its business by rebuilding scrapped US military vehicles. Shinjin Motor was first established as National Motor in 1937 in Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, Japanese Korea. After changing its name to Saenara Motor in 1962, Saenara Motor was bought by Shinjin Industrial in 1965, which changed its name to Shinjin Motor after establishing a partnership with Toyota. After Toyota's withdrawal in 1972 (to keep doing business with China, which would not trade with companies who engaged in South Korea or Taiwan), Shinjin Motor changed its name to GM Korea (GMK) in 1972 with General Motors purchasing a 50% stake in the company from Toyota in 1972; however GMK was renamed again in 1976 to Saehan Motors.

Korean Development Bank (KDB), the company's creditor, took over management in 1976 as the company found itself unable to cope with competition from Hyundai and Kia. After the Daewoo Group gained control in 1982, the name was changed once more to Daewoo Motor. In the early 1990s the company started to expand heavily throughout the world. Until 1996 all Daewoo cars were based on GM-designed models. After the Asian financial crisis reached South Korea in 1997, Daewoo took over the troubled SUV manufacturer SsangYong in 1998, but ran into financial trouble and was forced to sell the company off in 2001 to GM affiliate SAIC.

GM Daewoo

In 2001, General Motors bought most of Daewoo Motor's assets to form GM Daewoo Auto & Technology. The new company started operations on October 17, 2002, with GM and its partners Suzuki and SAIC holding a stake of 66.7% with investments of US$400 million. The GM holding was formally purchased by GM Holden Ltd which holds a seat on the board and is legally responsible for GM Daewoo.[3] The remaining equity stake of 33.3% was held by Korea Development Bank and several other Korean creditors with investments of US$197 million. The deal did not include 15 plants, including Daewoo's oldest plant in Bupyeong-gu which is now operated under the name Incheon Motor Company as a supplier to GM Daewoo. In 2004, Tata Motors purchased Daewoo Truck from GM. In February 2005, GM invested US$49 million to raise its share in the company to 48.2%. In 2010, General Motors owned 82.9%, SAIC 9.9%, and the Daewoo Motor Creditors Committee the remaining 7.2%.[4]

On November 25, 2003, the design center was relocated to the new two-story building at the Bupyeong-gu headquarters. The first car to be produced under the GM Daewoo nameplate was the 2002 Daewoo Lacetti, replacing the Nubira. This car was developed in South Korea under the Daewoo Motor era, but it gradually became a GM world car, sold under many different marques all around the globe. After a few years without any new cars to present, in 2005, GM Daewoo introduced the Holden-based Statesman luxury car replacing the discontinued Daewoo Chairman. The third generation of Matiz was introduced, refreshed by the GM Daewoo design team, and an evolution of the four-door Kalos appeared: the Gentra.

In early 2006, GM Daewoo presented Tosca, the replacement of the Magnus. GM Daewoo's official press releases says that Tosca is an acronym for "Tomorrow Standard Car". The end of the same year, GM Daewoo introduced the Winstorm, its first proper sport utility vehicle (SUV), which was, as the Lacetti, sold worldwide under different marques and names including Opel, Chevrolet, GMC and Holden, and previously Saturn before the demise of that brand in 2010. It featured a common rail Diesel engine for the first time in a Daewoo vehicle, in addition to regular four and six cylinder gasoline engines. The diesel engine design is licensed from the Italian engine maker VM Motori.

2007 saw the introduction of the Lacetti and Kalos hatchback facelift's wagon version, becoming the Gentra X. For 2008, GM Daewoo introduced the first Korean-branded roadster: the G2X sports car, a badge-engineered Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky which was based on the GM Kappa platform, and started to sell the Opel Antara under the name of Winstorm MaXX. The Statesman flagship was also replaced by the new Veritas which is now based on the Holden Caprice V.

Late 2008 and early 2009 were a major period for GM Daewoo with the introduction of the all-new Lacetti Premiere, which is based on the Chevrolet Cruze, a very important compact car for GM divisions worldwide. The newly rechristened third generation of the Matiz was added to the range in 2009 as the Chevrolet Spark.

2010 saw introduction of the Chevrolet Orlando and Alpheon, a local version of the Buick LaCrosse.

Establishment of GM Korea

On January 20, 2011, General Motors announced that GM Daewoo would be renamed GM Korea "to reflect [Daewoo's] heightened status in [the] global operations of GM,"[5] effective March 2011. Most of the former Daewoo products were rebadged as Chevrolets. GM's luxury division Cadillac is also available in South Korea.

In 2011 the Daewoo Tosca was replaced by a locally built version of the Chevrolet Malibu.

Manufacturing facilities

South Korea
Vietnam

Slogans

Model range

Current models manufactured

Current models imported

Discontinued models

Current models in production

Former models in production

Concept cars

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The figure only includes the South Korea-built vehicles.
  2. ↑ Formerly GM Daewoo Auto & Technology (/ˈdaɪwuː/; [tɛ.u]).
  3. ↑ Also spelled as 한국GM주식회사.

References

  1. 1 2 "Annual Report 2014. Korean Automobile Industry" (PDF). Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association. ISBN 978-89-8056-045-5. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2014-09-02. Retrieved 2014-09-02.
  2. ↑ Kang, Su-min (2015-04-11). 르노삼성과 한국GM, 지난해 전혀 다른 길 걸었다 [Renault Samsung and GM Korea were in a completely different path last year]. businesspost.co.kr (in Korean). Business Post. Retrieved 2015-11-25.
  3. ↑ http://awresearcher.net/VMSI/display.asp?vmsiid=2&contentid=12778%5B%5D
  4. ↑ "GM - Global Operations - Korea". General Motors. Archived from the original on 2009-02-28. Retrieved 2011-09-07.
  5. ↑ "GM introduces new name, brand for S. Korean unit". Yonhap News. 2011-01-20. Retrieved 2011-09-07.
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