CEO Concedes GM Could Be Bankrupt by June 1

If General Motors can’t put together a restructuring plan by June 1, it will end up in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, CEO Fritz Henderson said in a conference call today.

That’s the strongest statement yet from GM, tying a deadline together with GM contingency plans for bankruptcy.

“It’s pretty simple,” Henderson said in a media conference call. “I think we have until June 1. If we can’t accomplish it outside of a bankruptcy by June 1, then we would do it inside bankruptcy.”

In a sense, Henderson is only stating the obvious, since the U.S. Treasury Department in late March gave GM 60 days worth of working capital to come up with a more through-going restructuring than the plan GM submitted on Feb. 17. For that matter, GM warned late last year it could run out of cash by Dec. 31 without government support.

All along, the alternative has been bankruptcy, but GM refused for months to say it out loud. Henderson’s predecessor, Rick Wagoner, who was dismissed at the end of March by the president’s auto task force, couldn’t bring himself to utter the B-word (for bankruptcy) under any circumstances, until the very end of his tenure.

Henderson also continues to insist that bankruptcy isn’t “Plan A.” He said that GM continues to negotiate with bondholders and with the UAW for additional concessions the company says it needs to be profitable. Rival Ford, which so far has avoided a government bailout, has already won similar concessions.

For that matter, Henderson’s comments today can also been seen as a negotiating tactic with bondholders and with the union, reminding them of the looming deadline. GM wants the bondholders to accept only a portion of the value of their bonds, and for the UAW to agree to still-lower wages and benefits on top of earlier concessions.

Henderson made numerous references to the date in his remarks, and in answer to questions: “It’s April 17,” he said. “The clock is ticking.”