GM asks Europe for restructuring help

General Motors asked European governments to help pay most of the $4.9 billion that it needs to restructure its struggling European operations.

At talks in Brussels, E.U. nations where GM has plants vowed to avoid individual negotiations with the company before a Dec. 4 meeting, where they will coordinate their response to GM’s restructuring plans, due later this week.

Nick Reilly, chief executive of GM’s Opel and Vauxhall units, said it would be “quite difficult” for GM to supply much of the funding because it must also bear restructuring costs in the United States and elsewhere.

He refused to give details of the plan to cut some 20 to 25 percent of the company’s car-making capacity that will probably shed thousands of jobs. He said he first wanted to talk to workers’ representatives.

GM officials met Monday with ministers from Germany, Belgium, Britain, Spain, Sweden and Poland, as well as E.U. commissioners.

– Associated Press

– HP’s profit up 14 percent despite drop in sales: Hewlett-Packard’s profit jumped 14 percent, to $2.4 billion, in its fiscal first quarter, helped by cost-cutting and better results from its technology services division.

Those factors helped offset big revenue declines in four of HP’s major divisions — personal computers, servers, software and printers. HP’s overall revenue fell 8 percent, to $30.7 billion.

HP’s results are a yardstick for measuring overall technology spending. And the latest numbers reinforce trends that other companies have reported: Consumers and China are showing stronger demand, while businesses remain hesitant.