雅虎香港財經 What does a GM top exec drive? A Hummer EV and a 650-horsepower muscle car.
General Motors' (GM) CFO Paul Jacobson has a fun yet divided garage that mirrors the transition well underway at the automaker.
"I have Hummer EV in my garage, which I bought full MSRP," Jacobson told Yahoo Finance.
The Hummer EV, which launched to much fanfare in late October 2021, starts at about $85,000 with models that reach as high as $110,000, Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian reported.
The veteran exec is also still driving a new Camaro ZL1, a 650-horsepower gas-guzzling beast of a muscle car that promises to go zero to 60 in 3.5 seconds.
Given the stress associated with his public company gigs over the past few decades, who can blame Jacobson for enjoying a release with a few toys on four wheels?
Jacobson took over as GM's CFO on Dec. 1, 2020. He had been with Delta since 1997, a stretch coinciding with the September 11 terrorist attacks, a merger with Northwest Airlines, the Great Recession, and a COVID-19 pandemic that brought travel to a complete halt. Jacobson had been Delta's CFO since 2012.
"A lot of the principles are the same between Delta and GM," Jacobson said of his two high-profile roles. "We have got to drive efficiency in the business, but at the same time, we have to focus on the quality of the brand and the process. We have a lot of work ahead of us."
Indeed GM landed itself an operational field general that also knows numbers, a wicked management combo that will help it embark on an entirely new generation of automobiles that will require a lot of work, as Jacobson suggested.
When Jacobson isn't putting the pedal to the metal on his giant EV hummer or beastly Camaro, he is hard at work alongside CEO Mary Barra in driving that transformation at a legendary automaker.
Such a wholesale transformation — a reflection of a broader industry shift toward EVs and reduced cost profiles — encompasses a few different parts at GM.
The first key area is GM standing up dozens of new EV models over the next five years, such as the looming Silverado pickup truck, in an effort to reach $50 billion in sales by 2025 from the category. But at the same time, the automaker is investing $854 million into a variety of plants to build sixth-generation small-block V-8 engines.
GM's small-block V-8 dates back to 1954, and its fifth generation of the engine debuted in 2013. The company will need those engines in order to serve commercial customers.
The other component is bringing down costs to free up resources for the EV push and satisfy profit-hungry investors.
Jacobson recently detailed that 5,000 white-collar workers took buyouts — a move that will save GM about $1 billion in costs. This comes as GM aims to shave off $2 billion in costs over the next two years through various cost-cutting actions.
“We are a show-me story,” Jacobson said when asked why the stock trades at a steep discount to the broader market from a valuation perspective.
Jacobson is keen to wrestle market share away from Tesla (TSLA) and in the process, grab a slice of the lucrative EV industry leader's profit margins.
It's that margin potential that Jacobson no doubt feels while driving around a nearly $100,000 EV Hummer.
Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn. Tips on deals, mergers, activist situations or anything else? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com
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