June 17 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., under bankruptcy court protection since June 1, held talks with representatives of President Barack Obama’s auto task force about the planned sale of the company’s best assets, a person familiar with the matter said.

The Detroit-based automaker is preparing for a June 30 hearing on the sale of assets such as its Chevrolet, Cadillac and Buick brands to a new, government-based company. GM appears ready to meet the court’s timetable, said the person, who asked not to be identified because yesterday’s meeting was private.

Selling those brands will separate the valuable parts of GM from assets such as unwanted dealer contracts, allowing a new automaker to be operating by the end of August. Chrysler LLC sold its best assets to a group led by Fiat SpA on June 10 to create Chrysler Group LLC in the same type of court process.

“The sale of the good assets is the start of the recovery,” said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst at IHS Global Insight Inc. of Lexington, Massachusetts. “They’ve got to get it right and they’ve got to be on time.”

Obama automotive advisers Steven Rattner and Ronald Bloom were in Detroit, as was Edward Whitacre Jr., the former AT&T Inc. chief executive officer who has agreed to serve as chairman of GM after bankruptcy.

“We come to town regularly to meet with company officials,” Rattner said in an interview yesterday, declining to answer other questions. He said today that GM would exit bankruptcy “very soon.” Bloom wouldn’t discuss GM.

Getting Smaller

The company, which lost almost $88 billion since 2004, has announced plans to permanently close 11 plants and is in the process of trimming its dealer franchises to as few as 3,500 retail outlets by the end of next year from about 6,000 now. GM will leave the holdings it no longer wants, including most of the factories being closed, in bankruptcy for liquidation.

GM will retain four plants it had planned to close, putting them on so-called standby status in case the North American auto-sales market accelerates faster than anticipated and it needs more capacity. The automaker has said it plans to assemble a small car at one of the factories.

CEO Fritz Henderson said GM will choose among assembly plants in Orion Township, Michigan; Spring Hill, Tennessee; and Janesville, Wisconsin, for the new subcompact that once was to be made in China. The other standby plant is a stamping facility.

The new GM will keep the Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC brands, while the automaker’s other U.S. marques will be eliminated or sold out of the bankruptcy process.

GM has preliminary agreements to sell its Saturn division to car-dealer chain Penske Automotive Group Inc., the Hummer brand of SUVs to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. and Sweden’s Saab to luxury sports-car maker Koenigsegg Automotive AB. Pontiac is being dropped.

To contact the reporters on this story: Katie Merx in Detroit at kmerx@bloomberg.net; Doron Levin in Southfield, Michigan, at dlevin5@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 17, 2009 12:25 EDT