General Motors

ABOUT THIS COMPANY:

Detroit-based General Motors (GM) was the largest company worldwide in the 20th century, growing to operate manufacturing concerns in 35 countries and marketing products in nearly 190 countries.  By 2009, however, the company's highly visible downturn and subsequent bankruptcy filing made it the most public casualty of the global economic meltdown.  Having since resolved its debts and emerged from insolvency, the company has streamlined its business to its four core brands—Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC—while moving to phase out its Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer lines.  Gone too is Saab, sold in January 2010 to Netherlands-based Spyker Cars.  Overseas, the company had moved to unload its flagging Opel and Vauxhall brands, but has ultimately chosen to retain the two.  The once publically traded company now operates as a majority owned property of the United States Treasury (with a smaller stake held by the government of Ontario, Canada), but despite its setbacks remains one of the world's larger industrial enterprises.