Rod Lache Quotes (29 Quotes)

Customers are unsure of what supplier pricing is, but they are assuming correctly that it is not as good as employee pricing.

The full benefit of the 18 million vehicle sales pace a year ago was never really achieved because of severe negative pricing over last couple of years. What's going to happen as auto demand decline you're not going to see pricing go up, you'll see pricing go down more.

I think it's a smart move because it's less deceptive. People who are going on the Internet can get the right news up front.

Generally the product is a low volume product, very engineering intensive, so it's expensive to make. GM has too much car capacity and not enough truck capacity. Car plants are operating close to 70 percent capacity, while truck plants are close to 100 percent. You can use that manufacturing plant, maybe for a hybrid sports utility vehiclecar.

This result underscores our concern about GM's earnings concentration, which may be even more acute than we have estimated.

I think it's almost impossible for Ford to distance themselves from the problem, but I think they've done a very good job conveying responsiveness to the U.S. consumer, obviously being more responsive than Firestone has.

The Firestone name is horribly damaged and it's definitely not clear they can survive the damage.

This is no big surprise. It's been rumored for some time. As far as share price, I think it depends on who they put in there. Right now there's a vacuum. If they put someone in who is shareholder-oriented, it should help.

When you can price much higher that means you can put a lot more content into the vehicles and can reinforce that brand equity by putting out exceptional products.

We believe liquidity pressures, combined with a weak fundamental outlook could compel Dana to pursue debtor in possession financing and a Chapter 11 reorganization. Given restrictions on secured borrowing and pressure from its suppliers, Dana may not be successful in obtaining sufficient out of bankruptcy secured bank financing.

Our key takeaway from Toyota and Nissan presentations is that there may be more risk to our GM and Ford market share assumptions than previously thought.

I think we might have a slight degree of difference in the degree of aggressiveness in certain government bodies such as EPA and NHTSA. But overall, even in a Bush administration, environmental regulations are going to become increasingly stringent.

Investors will have fresh questions about the feasibility of the company's 1 billion material cost savings goal in 2006. This is clearly a bad situation, but maybe not as bad as it originally appears.

It seems like perceptions in Detroit have changed quite a bit, and people are nervous about GMs future, ... This health care deal doesnt solve GMs problems, but its a very good step.

Achieving significant cost reduction will be difficult, as we believe that GM's relationship with UAW leaders could become increasingly contentious as GM's North American business experiences further deterioration.

It looks like cost savings are trending better than expected and Asia and Latin America are getting close to turning the corner. On the negative side, Europe is having some pretty disappointing profitability.

It doesn't give them the critical mass they need in Japan or any other Asian market. They want to have 25 percent of the Asian market. It's very strongly implied there will be more ma activity in the market.

I think that (labor peace at GM) is largely the news here. They've lost a lot of momentum last year and previous years due to strikes.

My feeling is that it (the Firestone brand) is irreparably damaged. I don't see how or why they would try to support the brand when they have a better brand (Bridgestone) that is unscathed by this news.

I don't see this as resulting in anything dramatically negative. Over time, you'll see incentives rising everywhere. But it's not anything scary yet.

Korea is the sixth largest car market in the world, and companies need the distribution network that Daewoo has. It also is a good platform with its low cost small car to move into China. It might not be the hottest one at the dance, but it's the only single one.

Sales of 16 million now looks a lot less profitable than 16 million did a few years ago,

No matter what it looks like, reaching a deal will involve some cost to GM, ... But on the positive side, we believe that GM will likely avoid a potentially devastating shutdown of its North American operations.

The primary reason for our change of thinking is that there may be a legitimate argument that GM and the UAW would be better off if Delphi files,

We believe that Dana is struggling to obtain secured bank financing and a bank deal may not materialize, or if it does, it may be too small to allow Dana to weather company specific and industry head winds.

They've eroded a lot of their credibility over the past couple of years. (Now) the bar that they set has been lowered again.

Language in the filing seems to suggest that a deal is not imminent and may not happen at all. Since the company appears to have suggested to the rating agencies that it expects resolution by the end of first quarter, we perceive elevated risk surrounding the sale.

Ford's North American operating business model continues to deteriorate,

Dana is struggling to obtain secured bank financing and a bank deal may not materialize. We remain concerned that Dana will be unable to overcome weak demand outlooks.