GM's Whitacre to stay on as CEO

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co Chairman Ed Whitacre said on Monday that he would stay on as chief executive of the automaker indefinitely, ending an eight-week search for his successor in a bid to bring stability to GM's turnaround plans.

The move had been considered highly likely after Whitacre, 68, announced on December 1 that he would take over as acting CEO from Fritz Henderson, who was ousted after eight months.

"I told the board I would take it," Whitacre told reporters at a hastily arranged news conference at GM's headquarters in downtown Detroit.

"We didn't assign a specific time to it," Whitacre said of the planned length of his tenure. "But as far as I'm concerned, it's for an adequate amount of time to get done what we need to get done, and I can't tell you whether it's three years or two years or what."

He has been chairman of the GM board since July and moved quickly last month to install a new team of executives to head up GM's troubled North American operations.

"This place needs some stability. I guess that's me," Whitacre said.

Whitacre said he had not planned to stay on as permanent CEO when he announced that the board had formed a search committee on December 1. At a meeting last week, Whitacre and the other 11 members of the GM board agreed that he should remain in the job.

"You sort of get pulled in, if you would," Whitacre said. "I didn't know that was going to happen. I didn't plan on it."

Whitacre said he will keep his house in Texas and continue to travel back and forth to Detroit. He said he was not sure what he would be paid as CEO.

Whitacre, the former chief executive at AT&T , became GM chairman in July at the request of the Obama administration as the company emerged from a government-sponsored bankruptcy that included more than $50 billion in financing.

Whitacre has said Chris Liddell, who joined GM as chief financial officer from Microsoft Corp , is a leading candidate to succeed him.

In December, Whitacre announced a shakeup of the automaker's senior leadership, tightening his hold on GM's reins and installing a new group of executives to head the automaker's troubled U.S. operations.

GM has lost $88 billion since 2005. Whitacre has said the automaker could post a profit this year as it aims to relist its shares as soon as late 2010.

The company had hired Spencer Stuart to look for a permanent CEO, but the executive search firm never presented a list of candidates to the board, people familiar with the matter have said.

Whitacre becomes the third CEO at the largest U.S. automaker in 10 months.

Henderson, 51, was a career GM executive who had risen through company ranks and steered the automaker through its 40-day bankruptcy.

Rick Wagoner, 56, was CEO from 2000 until last March, when the Obama administration's autos task force ousted him.

Henderson and Wagoner each tried to remake GM into a leaner and faster-moving company, but both were seen as acting too slowly and without the credibility of an outsider.

The three U.S. automakers -- GM, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler Group LLC -- now have chief executives who made their careers outside Detroit.

Alan Mulally, who became Ford's CEO in 2006 after leaving Boeing , has reshaped the No. 2 U.S. automaker and steered it clear of a federal bailout.

Chrysler is led by Sergio Marchionne, also the chairman of Fiat SpA , which took management control as part of the automaker's government-brokered bankruptcy.

(Additional reporting by David Bailey and Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Dave Zimmerman, Lisa Von Ahn and Matthew Lewis)

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