Cadillac’s recently appointed brand chief Johan de Nysschen has big plans for the company, some of which he revealed in a recent interview with USA Today. His plan to move the company’s headquarters from Detroit to New York is already in place, but simply moving away from the mothership isn’t enough. He also wants Cadillac to report its earnings and losses separately from General Motors.
According to de Nysschen, GM is a big, powerful “titan” of a company. That means it works and makes decisions slowly, something established luxury brands like BMW and Mercedes-Benz don’t do. Spinning Cadillac off into its own brand will allow it to make moves on its own accord and to keep up with the ever changing luxury automotive landscape.
But don’t worry, Cadillac isn’t being sold off in an IPO and having whatever’s left handed over to investors, like Fiat-Chrysler plans to do with its Ferrari brand. Cadillac will very much remain a GM brand, and GM isn’t preparing for its sale anytime soon.
GM product chief Mark Reuss said plans to move Cadillac away from the company’s headquarters and have it report its earnings separately were “already moving in that direction,” before de Nysschen joined the company. de Nysschen liked what he saw and “that’s why he came on board,” Reuss said.
Comments
This guy , Johan , is going to ruin Cadillac . He’s leaving Detroit and now wants to stand alone as a car company . Does anyone remember a man named Roger Smith and his vision of Saturn . We seen how that worked out . Mary Barra aren’t you listening to your critics ? Your time at the helm will be limited . And when Cadillac comes back to Detroit where it belongs Johan will be forced out , he’ll take his pension , stock portfolio and live high on the hog and fade away /
Well how is Cadillac to function if it’s not a division? Cadillac as a brand has crippled them and reduced Cadillac public image to being value-for-money knock off.
How can Cadillac know what the demands of the luxury consumer is if they remain in Detroit? Detroit isn’t renown as a major luxury market, and never will be.
Detroit is broken city of the industrial era. NYC is where the luxury trends of tomorrow start.
de Nysschen is doing what no GM executive in over 60 years has ever had the balls to do; to make Cadillac a luxury automaker.
BTW, Saturn worked out just fine, until they were starved of new product. The Z-bodies thoroughly outstripped the J-bodies in every metric, but GM let them stagnate for 10 years without a suitable replacement. If GM acted sooner, brought a new platform forward to replace the Z, Saturn would still be here.
Instead, The Z-body and the J-bodies dragged on until 2002. They were both replaced with the mk1 Delta, thus destroying whatever divisional advantage that was left of Saturn. Despite your objections, Smith was not at fault for the failure of Saturn. It was it’s successors, Stempel and Smith Jr., who did nothing to advance Saturn when they had the chance.