The shares of General Motors Co. have fallen by almost 14% since Mary Barra took the position of Chief Executive Officer of the company. At the same time, Standard & Poors 500 Index has risen and so did the shares of Microsoft Corp., which also underwent through management changes.
The companys shares were reported to have decreased to their lowest price for 2014 that amounted to 33.57 dollars apiece on March 14th. The companys shareholders lost 4.8 billion dollars in equity value between March 11th and 14th.
Ms. Barra has also been facing increasing losses of the company on the territory of Europe and decreasing sales in the U.S. in 2014, as well as competing with serious rivals such as Volkswagen AG, which is currently making a great progress on the Chinese market.
One of the analysts, who work for Guggenheim Securities LLC – Mr. Matt Stover – commented the situation in a telephone interview for Bloomberg: “The reason GM’s stock is down has more to do with the fundamentals.”
At a moment when the company is dealing with its share price decline, Ms. Mary Barra has made the decision to release several videos responding personally to questions related with the recalls of about 1.6 million small General Motors vehicles.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the companys Chief Executive Officer commented on the safety of General Motors Chevrolet, Saturn and other vehicles: “The simple answer is yes, the cars are safe to drive. GM engineers have done extensive analysis to make sure if only you have the key or only the key on a ring, the vehicle is safe to drive. In fact, when they presented this to me, the very first question I asked is would you let your family, your spouse, your children drive these vehicles in this condition and they said yes.”
Ms. Barra, however, has to worry not only for the recalls in question, but is also expected to take care of the declining shares of the company. GMs downfall began prior to the recalls after the companys market value jumped by 42% in 2013, but the stock hasnt topped $39.77 a share since Barras appointment as CEO on January 15th.
General Motors Co. fell by 0.84% on Wednesday in New York to settle the session at $34.22 per share, marking a one-year change of +21.95% and valuing the company at $54.40 billion. According to CNN Money, the 17 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for General Motors Co. have a median target of $47.00, with a high estimate of $52.00 and a low estimate of $35.00. The median estimate represents a +37.35% increase from the last price of $34.22.
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