WEDNESDAY 18 MAY 2005:
HOLDEN UNVEILS NEW HEADQUARTERS IN PORT MELBOURNE

Holden will today move from art deco to state-of-the-art with the opening of its new headquarters building at 191 Salmon Street, Port Melbourne.

More than 1500 employees will be consolidated under one roof for the first time since Holden’s heritage listed headquarters were built beside the new site in the 1930s.

The building construction by Baulderstone Hornibrook was part of a $200 million redevelopment of the Fishermans Bend business precinct. Funded by Mirvac Group, the building is leased back by Holden as part of a long-term lease arrangement.

Holden Chairman and Managing Director, Denny Mooney, will join the Premier of Victoria, the Hon Steve Bracks, and Mirvac Managing Director, Greg Paramor to officially open the building today. Mr Mooney today said the new building, known within Holden as HQ191, celebrated a new phase in Holden’s history in Australia.

“The move comes at a pivotal point in our history as we prepare for an all-new Commodore range in 2006,” Mr Mooney said. “HQ191 creates greater opportunity for Holden teams to work more collaboratively and openly and comes on top of our own $2 billion, five-year investment program for Australia by 2006.

“The Saab team will also move into HQ191 bringing GM brands together for the first time. The brands continue to operate separately from the customer’s perspective while achieving significant savings by sharing back office and administrative functions.”

To coincide with the move, Holden announced a change of its company name to GM Holden Ltd, restoring the reference to parent company General Motors which had been part of the Australian name for all but nine years of its ownership of Holden since 1931.

HQ191 provides Holden with 20,400 square metres of office space inside the three storey building which includes two full-height atrium spaces and links to the new multi-storey car park.

The project represented the largest building works program for Holden’s corporate headquarters since its original art deco buildings were built.

Mirvac (formerly James Fielding Group) was selected by Holden in 2002 after a national search for a compatible and suitably qualified partner to deliver the company’s corporate statement.

For media enquiries, contact:
Jason Laird
Holden Corporate Affairs
(03) 9647 5278 or 0439 998523
[email protected]
Emily Perry
Holden Corporate Affairs
(03) 9647 5233 or 0401 713199
[email protected]

Media can access Holden Media Online at http://media.holden.com.au
The purists will say its always been GM-H, but its still all a bit of a wank as far as im concerned. Bit of a coincidence that the last few years when Holdens actually been making a name for themselves, their corporate name had nothing to do with GM, now all of a sudden they want their recognition back.