Success story
Sales amounted to almost $1 million in the first two years of business and continued to rise for decades until the 1980s. Marvel was founded in 1939 by Martin Goodman and saw instant success with its creation of the Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and Captain America. Today, GM produces over 9 million vehicles annually, employs almost 200,000 people and brings in $150 billion in annual revenue. In 2010, the reorganized GM made an initial public offering that was one of the world’s top five largest IPOs to date and returned to profitability later that year. The shares in Ally were sold on December 18, 2014, for $19.6 billion netting $2.4 billion.Ī study by the Center for Automotive Research found that the GM bailout saved 1.2 million jobs and preserved $34.9 billion in tax revenue.
The Treasury invested an additional $17.2 billion into GM’s former financing company, GMAC (now Ally). Treasury invested $50 billion in GM and recovered $39 billion when it sold its shares later that year. On June 1, 2009, GM went bankrupt, stripping stockholders of almost all of their investment and closing down several brands like Saturn, Pontiac and Hummer.Ī month later, the U.S. Sloan took over and led the company into global dominance, which lasted well into the 1980s. Just two years later in 1910, Durant lost control of GM to a bankers’ trust due to massive amounts of debt and a collapse in car sales.Īfter a dramatic proxy war in 1915, he was able to regain control, only to lose it again for good in 1918 after the new vehicle market collapsed again. Durant in 1908 and was initially a holding company. Perhaps the most dramatic turnaround success story is that of General Motors (GM).