GM's CFO moves toward a higher profile role
By Joseph White
MILFORD, Mich. (Reuters) - General Motors Co (NYSE: GM) Chief Financial Officer Chuck Stevens doesn't deliver passion and drama in his presentations.
But he got closer than ever Thursday with about 180 investors gathered at the company's historic proving grounds here.
"We expect double digit earnings per share growth for the next number of years," Stevens said. "Let me repeat that," he added. Then he did, emphasizing each word.
Stevens, 55, told investors GM is targeting earnings per share as much as 22 percent higher than the $4.50 a share analysts forecast for 2015. He also laid out ambitious targets for cash flow and margins.
He was rewarded with a 2.2 percent gain in GM shares that left them at $30.67, still below the $33 a share price set for the automaker's 2010 initial public offering after it emerged from a federally-funded bankruptcy.
Frustrated over the stagnant share price, Stevens said he will step up his efforts to convince investors that the GM of 2015 is not the company that disappointed shareholders for years.
“I had more than 50 interactions with investor groups in 2014,” Stevens said in an interview ahead of the Milford meeting. “I’d like to do a lot more this year.”
Stevens has worked at GM for 32 years. But the Flint, Michigan native spent more than half his career outside the U.S. In the early 1990s, he was part of the team that negotiated GM’s first joint venture in China.
More recently, Stevens played a central role in then-CFO Dan Ammann’s overhaul of GM’s internal accounting that allowed management to see clearly how much money GM made or lost on each car line. Ammann is now GM’s president.
Stevens gets enthusiastic about nitty gritty cost-cutting, telling investors he personally led a project to slash consulting costs by 30 percent. But investors want his reassurance that GM is delivering on bigger goals.
GM Chief Executive Mary Barra in March outlined plans to return $10 billion to investors by the end of 2016, including a $5 billion share buyback program. Investors came to Milford looking for clues as to whether more cash would be coming their way.
"We expect an acceleration of cash flow," Stevens said. "That will translate into a greater return of capital to our owners."
(Reporting By Joseph White; Editing by Christian Plumb)